With religion, it's 10x more intense because they can't put down the beaker or drill and go have a beer with their buddies - it's their entire identity. FT/Der Spiegel/The Guardian(usually)/the Newshours(BBC/PBS) all do a good job for the limited amount of time/column-lines they have to cover such a complicated topic such as religious factionism that goes back thousands of years. Then there's the Bismarckian Realpolitik which is certainly a large aspect of it.
There was certainly Saudi money behind it. But when you hear "state-sponsored terrorism" it could mean a lot of things. A governor or 8th son might have funded a non-profit NGO which later turned out to be mostly legitimate but 10% of those funds were diverted to purchase New-old-stock over-stock arms from the former USSR (then the question arises - was it with or without his knowledge?). because the House of Saud itself has politics that are so intricate internally that you'd have to spend years studying that exclusively. Start reading about the First Saudi state of 1744 (under Abdel Wahhab's rule in alliance with ibn Saud) and a few thousand pages later one might have half of a grasp on the internal politics. And that's just historical internal Saudi politics. Bring in religious subsets and hatred spawned from that, ethnic hatred (Persians are about as Arab, as Japanese are Chinese), international interests propping up different regimes and it's all a very complicated game.
Think of how complicated our government operates with just two parties - the capitalists who retain the lobbyists that influence the congressmen who have multiple interests that have to be simultaneously balanced in order to keep their constituents, donors, and party all happy enough so that you retain power. It's all a subtle game of spinning plates and we're working with just with two parties (effectively).
