It has frequently been pointed out that despite these conflicts between the Saudi government and ISIL, the country's religious establishment follows the same ideology, Wahhabism, that ISIL is based on. Allegations of Saudi funding of ISIL[6] have cited an anonymous briefing[7] forwarded to John Podesta by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 17 August 2014 which includes: "We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isis and other radical Sunni groups in the region." However it has been pointed out that this memo was probably written by Sidney Blumenthal and doesn't necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. government or Hillary Clinton.[8]

After the murder of fusilier Lee Rigby outside an army barracks in south-east London in 2013, prime minister David Cameron told parliament: “When young men born and bred in this country are radicalised and turned into killers . . . we have to do more.”