SAUDI ARABIA and IS

[sorcerer]

Saudi Arabia Building 600-Mile-Long Wall Along Iraqi Border

Saudi Arabia is erecting a 600-mile-long barrier along its border with Iraq; the Kingdom hopes the combined fence and ditch will protect it from an invasion at the hands of the Islamic State.

MOSCOW, January 15 (Sputnik), Ekaterina Blinova — The Saudi Kingdom hopes a planned 600-mile-long wall separating it from Iraq will protect it from ongoing turmoil triggered by the Islamic State's advance in the region.

"Like the Great Wall of China, built in 220-206 BC, Saudi Arabia's wall is meant to contain foreign invaders, and a similar, if less costly, barrier in under construction along Saudi Arabia's 1,000-mile southern border with Yemen," United Press International reported.

The barrier combines a fence and a ditch, and is meant to protect the Kingdom from the Islamic State fighters who have seized much of northern Iraq. According to the media outlet, the wall comprises "40 watchtowers, five layers of fence, sand embankments and radar and camera installations." The wall will stretch from the western border town of Tureif to Hafal al-Batin, on the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Riyadh has not yet announced the cost of the construction.

The project had initially been proposed in 2006, during the Iraqi civil war, but construction started only in 2014, after ISIS seized much of the Iraqi north, as well as western Iraq, which borders the Kingdom. It is worth mentioning that the Islamic State sees the conquest of Saudi Arabia as a "sacred" goal, since the country is home to Islam's two most revered cities, Mecca and Medina, the Telegraph underscores.

Meanwhile Riyadh has sent additional 30,000 troops to the region to ensure that construction proceeds safely. It should be noted that last week, on January 5, Islamic State insurgents attacked a Saudi military contingent at the Suweif border post, 25 miles from the town of Arar, which borders the Iraqi province of Anbar. During the clash, Saudi General Oudah al-Belawi was killed along with the other senior officer and a guard. The attackers were shot dead by Saudi troops; one of the militants blew himself up with a suicide belt, the Telegraph added.

Al-Shofra reported, citing Elaph, an independent Arabian daily, that Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has identified the four militants as Saudi nationals. On Wednesday, January 7, Saudi security forces launched a large-scale military operation in the Arar region and detained several terror suspects allegedly linked to the deadly border incident, the media outlet noted.

Saudi Arabia Building 600-Mile-Long Wall Along Iraqi Border / Sputnik International

 

[sorcerer]

Report: Germany Halts Arms Exports To Saudis
BERLIN — Germany has decided to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia because of "instability in the region," German daily Bild reported on Sunday.

Weapons orders from Saudi Arabia have either been "rejected, pure and simple," or deferred for further consideration, the newspaper said, adding that the information has not been officially confirmed.

The decision was taken on Wednesday by the national security council, a government body that includes Chancellor Angela Merkel, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and seven other ministers, it said.

"According to government sources, the situation in the region is too unstable to ship arms there," added the daily.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict and highly conservative form of Islam, and as home to some of its holiest sites plays a key role as a spiritual leader for Sunni Muslims and mediator in the Middle East.

Its importance was made clear on Saturday when world leaders converged on Riyadh to offer condolences following the death of King Abdullah, including Britain's prime minister and France's president.

Germany was represented by former President Christian Wulff.

The kingdom is "one of the most important clients of Germany's arms industry," with €360 million ($400 million) of arms shipments authorized in 2013, Bild said.

But it has also come under fire from human rights groups for its harsh treatment of religious minorities and women, as well as the lack of transparency in its legal system.

A survey carried out for Bild found that 78 percent of Germans believe Berlin should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia — and a further 60 percent want to break off trade ties all together — due to human rights violations.

Report: Germany Halts Arms Exports To Saudis
==
Well the reasoning from the German side is not what it seems to be..
Saudi has been known for its human rights violation and lack of transparency ever since. Its not new.
Germany has found a Euro 360Mil market already...
Now..they are citing the "human rights" issue to prevent shipment to Saudi.

hmmm...Seems like Someone is testing the new Saudi Administration.. or could be outright armtwisting.

 

[sorcerer]

Car bomb explodes in Saudi capital Riyadh

A car bomb has exploded at a security checkpoint in the Saudi capital Riyadh, killing the driver and wounding two policemen, the interior ministry said.

The blast came with the kingdom on alert for attacks by Isis, who have been blamed for killing policemen members of the minority Shia community.

The policemen were in a “stable condition” in hospital, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi press agency.

The blast went off when police manning the checkpoint on Al-Hair Road stopped the car for a routine check, said the ministry.

“The driver blew up the car and killed himself,” it said.

Asked whether the incident was linked to Isis, Gen Mansour al-Turki, the interior ministry spokesman, said he was waiting for information from investigators.

He said the explosion happened on a road leading to Al-Hair prison, a high-security facility where Islamic radicals are among those reportedly held.

Thursday’s explosion took place on the last day of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, while fireworks exploded around the Saudi capital before the Eid al-Fitr holiday on Friday.

On successive Fridays in May two suicide bombings at mosques of the minority Shia community in its eastern province killed 25 people.

An Isis-affiliated group calling itself Najd Province – which takes its name from the region around Riyadh – claimed those attacks as well as another suicide bombing that killed 26 people at a Shia mosque in Kuwait last month.

Five Saudis are among 29 people charged in connection with the Kuwait bombing.

In the southwestern city of Taif on 3 July, a policeman was gunned down during a raid in which three people were arrested and flags of the Isis extremists found, police said earlier.

A fourth suspect was later shot dead.

Saudi Arabia had released a list of 16 men wanted for alleged involvement in the mosque bombings in its eastern province, home to most of the kingdom’s Shia minority.

Isis has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, where it has carried out numerous atrocities and inspired attacks around the world. It considers Shia Muslims to be heretics.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/car-bomb-explodes-saudi-capital-riyadh

 

[gslv]

Mother is trying to keep the son away.

 

[sorcerer]

Saudi Arabia says arrested 431 Daesh suspects, thwarted mosque bombings

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has arrested 431 people suspected of belonging to Daesh cells, and thwarted attacks on mosques, security forces and a diplomatic mission, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

"The number arrested to date is 431, most of them citizens, in addition to participants from other nationalities ... six successive suicide operations which targeted mosques in the Eastern province on every Friday timed with assassinations of security men were thwarted," the statement posted on the official news agency SPA said.

"Terrorist plots to target a diplomatic mission, security and government facilities in Sharurah province and the assassination of security men were thwarted," it said.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi...h-suspects-thwarted-mosque-bombings-1.1552374

 

[aliyah]

saudi wall is not for IS its for shia extremist..... they have reached Yemen......

 

[sorcerer]

Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom

Saudi Arabia is no state at all. It's an unstable business so corrupt to resemble a criminal organization and the U.S. should get ready for the day after.


For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.” So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterrorism slush fund without a second thought. In a sea of chaos, goes the refrain, the kingdom is one state that’s stable.


But is it?

In fact, Saudi Arabia is no state at all. There are two ways to describe it: as a political enterprise with a clever but ultimately unsustainable business model, or so corrupt as to resemble in its functioning a vertically and horizontally integrated criminal organization. Either way, it can’t last. It’s past time U.S. decision-makers began planning for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom.

In recent conversations with military and other government personnel, we were startled at how startled they seemed at this prospect. Here’s the analysis they should be working through.

Understood one way, the Saudi king is CEO of a family business that converts oil into payoffs that buy political loyalty. They take two forms: cash handouts or commercial concessions for the increasingly numerous scions of the royal clan, and a modicum of public goods and employment opportunities for commoners. The coercive “stick” is supplied by brutal internal security services lavishly equipped with American equipment.



The U.S. has long counted on the ruling family having bottomless coffers of cash with which to rent loyalty. Even accounting today’s low oil prices, and as Saudi officials step up arms purchases and military adventures in Yemen and elsewhere, Riyadh is hardly running out of funds.

Still, expanded oil production in the face of such low prices—until the Feb. 16 announcement of a Saudi-Russian freeze at very high January levels—may reflect an urgent need for revenue as well as other strategic imperatives. Talk of a Saudi Aramco IPO similarly suggests a need for hard currency.

A political market, moreover, functions according to demand as well as supply. What if the price of loyalty rises?

It appears that is just what’s happening. King Salman had to spend lavishly to secure the allegiance of the notables who were pledged to the late King Abdullah. Here’s what played out in two other countries when this kind of inflation hit. In South Sudan, an insatiable elite not only diverted the newly minted country’s oil money to private pockets but also kept up their outsized demands when the money ran out, sparking a descent into chaos. The Somali government enjoys generous donor support, but is priced out of a very competitive political market by a host of other buyers—with ideological, security or criminal agendas of their own.

Such comparisons may be offensive to Saudi leaders, but they are telling. If the loyalty price index keeps rising, the monarchy could face political insolvency.

Looked at another way, the Saudi ruling elite is operating something like a sophisticated criminal enterprise, when populations everywhere are making insistent demands for government accountability. With its political and business elites interwoven in a monopolistic network, quantities of unaccountable cash leaving the country for private investments and lavish purchases abroad, and state functions bent to serve these objectives, Saudi Arabia might be compared to such kleptocracies as Viktor Yanukovich’s Ukraine.

Increasingly, Saudi citizens are seeing themselves as just that: citizens, not subjects. In countries as diverse as Nigeria, Ukraine, Brazil, Moldova, and Malaysia, people are contesting criminalized government and impunity for public officials—sometimes violently. In more than half a dozen countries in 2015, populations took to the streets to protest corruption. In three of them, heads of state are either threatened or have had to resign. Elsewhere, the same grievances have contributed to the expansion of jihadi movements or criminal organizations posing as Robin Hoods. Russia and China’s external adventurism can at least partially be explained as an effort to re-channel their publics‘ dissatisfaction with the quality of governance.


For the moment, it is largely Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority that is voicing political demands. But the highly educated Sunni majority, with unprecedented exposure to the outside world, is unlikely to stay satisfied forever with a few favors doled out by geriatric rulers impervious to their input. And then there are the “guest workers.” Saudi officials, like those in other Gulf states, seem to think they can exploit an infinite supply of indigents grateful to work at whatever conditions. But citizens are now heavily outnumbered in their own countries by laborers who may soon begin claiming rights.

For decades, Riyadh has eased pressure by exporting its dissenters—like Osama bin Laden—fomenting extremism across the Muslim world. But that strategy can backfire: bin Laden’s critique of Saudi corruption has been taken up by others and resonates among many Arabs. And King Salman (who is 80, by the way) does not display the dexterity of his half-brother Abdullah. He’s reached for some of the familiar items in the autocrats’ toolbox: executing dissidents, embarking on foreign wars, and whipping up sectarian rivalries to discredit Saudi Shiite demands and boost nationalist fervor. Each of these has grave risks.

There are a few ways things could go, as Salman’s brittle grip on power begins cracking.

One is a factional struggle within the royal family, with the price of allegiance bid up beyond anyone’s ability to pay in cash. Another is foreign war. With Saudi Arabia and Iran already confronting each other by proxy in Yemen and Syria, escalation is too easy. U.S. decision-makers should bear that danger in mind as they keep pressing for regional solutions to regional problems. A third scenario is insurrection—either a non-violent uprising or a jihadi insurgency—a result all too predictable given episodes throughout the region in recent years.

The U.S. keeps getting caught flat-footed when purportedly solid countries came apart. At the very least, and immediately, rigorous planning exercises should be executed, in which different scenarios and different potential U.S. actions to reduce the codependence and mitigate the risks can be tested. Most likely, and most dangerous, outcomes should be identified, and an energetic red team should shoot holes in the automatic-pilot thinking that has guided Washington policy to date.

“Hope is not a policy” is a hackneyed phrase. But choosing not to consider alternatives amounts to the same thing.

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/02/de-waal-and-chayes-saudi-arabia/125953/?oref=d-river

 

[sorcerer]

Saudi Arabia 'Planning NATO-Like Military Alliance of Muslim States'

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has proposed a "NATO-like" military alliance of Islamic countries to combat terrorism, it has been reported. The proposed alliance would not be against any particular country but would combat terrorism and threats like ISIS, Pakistani news channel Dunya News reported.
Pakistan has been entrusted to develop the framework for the proposed military alliance of 34 Muslim-majority nations.

It comes as Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawz Shareef and its army chief General Raheel Shareef (no relation) were in Saudi Arabia for a three-day visit to witness the end of a major joint military exercise. Troops from 21 different countries took part in the maneuvers in northern Saudi Arabia to better prepare for a terror attack.

It is unclear whether the alliance of Muslim nations will include Iran - the Shia-dominated enemy of Saudi Arabia which has recently seen the West's economic sanctions against it being lifted.
It comes as Israel is reportedly quietly making overtures to Sunni Arab states to push for closer ties.

Tel Aviv is hoping to counter the influence of Tehran - which has repeatedly threatened to attack Israel with the nuclear weapons it was developing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Many have criticised Saudi Arabia for alleged human rights abuses in its proxy war with Iran for dominance in the Middle East. The Saudi-led military coalition waging war on Houthi rebels in Yemen killed 41 civilians in an air strike on a market in Mastaba on Tuesday.

The World Health Organisation said more than 6,200 people have been killed in the conflict since March 2015 and the UN warned of a "human catastrophe unfolding" in the country.
The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) was first agreed in 1949 as a way to combat the threat of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War.

Source>>


Another Practical Joke from Middle East!!

 

[garg_bharat]

The Sunni-NATO will probably first invade Syria, then Iran.
Wait for fireworks guys.