al-qaeda chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2015 part 14-2-sa-blowback-9

By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 14-2-SA-Blowback-9

….Muhammed's Army may eventually come home to Mecca."…. "Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed

to instill fear. "I do think that if they took a gamble, it's a big gamble.

“Empires are lost when inadequate men become leaders and wage war for base reasons or no reason at all.” - Sun Tzu

"ICH" - "Sputnik" - The United Nations Security Council needs a name-change in the interests of accuracy and truth in language. It should henceforth be called the Insecurity Council. Or better still, the UN Council for Aiding and Abetting Aggression. This week the ill-named UN Security Council voted 14-0 to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on the people of Yemen who are fighting for their political independence. All of those countries mentioned are the main participants in the ad hoc foreign military coalition that has been bombing Yemen for the past three weeks. This coalition hasn't a legal mandate to carry out its military actions. Such actions therefore amount to criminal aggression

Bruce Riedel writes: "The Pakistani leader reportedly believes that if the Saudis enter into a ground war in Yemen — with or without Pakistani forces — it will become a quagmire. They have simply 'bitten off more than they can chew.'

• Adnan Abu Zeed reports from Baghdad that the Yemen war is deepening Sunni-Shiite animosity among Iraqis.

• Mohammad Ali Shabani writes that Iran’s proposal for a diplomatic solution appears a more mature approach to addressing Yemen’s civil war, compared with Saudi Arabia’s military intervention: "While it is unclear when the war in Yemen will end, what is clear is that Iranian diplomacy is proving to be an effective response to Saudi money and firepower. And with the goals of the Yemen war increasingly muddled, Saudi Arabia and its allies may soon find themselves bogged down in a quagmire."AQAP exploiting the chaos Taking advantage of Hadramawt being generally

spared the air raids, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized Mukalla airport and a military base full of heavy weaponry. "While e the coalition is busy with its job (striking Huthis), AQAP is benefiting from the situation by seizing positions," said Mathieu Guidere, Islamic studies professor at the University of Toulouse in France. He argues that if the coalition succeeds in defeating the Huthis, "the next step will be to tackle AQAP which also threatens the legitimate authority in Yemen". However, opening a second front now would complicate Riyadh's task.

C; in a strange twist: 19 April 2015 Saudi Arabia has pledged to provide all $274m (£183m; €255m) being requested by the United Nations to help those affected by the current conflict in Yemen. The Saudis are leading an air campaign against the Houthi rebel movement that has overthrown the Yemeni government. By this we in the West likely turn a blind eye to the non UNSCR approved actions of the Saudi led coalition. History repeats itself and a blowback is made. The Saudi-led coalition waging air strikes in Yemen takes its offensive to the diplomatic stage Tuesday, seeking a UN demand that rebels retreat and an arms embargo and sanctions against their leaders.

Fearing Yemen Defeat, US-Saudis Stack the Deck

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By Finian Cunningham April 17, 2015 "ICH" - "Sputnik" - The United Nations Security Council needs a name-change in the interests of accuracy and truth in language. It should henceforth be called the Insecurity Council. Or better still, the UN Council for Aiding and Abetting Aggression.Not content with wanton bombing of the poorest Arab country — Yemen — with hundreds of warplanes, the US and its dictatorial Saudi allies have now bounced the UNSC into trying to "legally" disarm the rebels in that country. This is while the US is moving to increase its weapons supplies to the Saudi-led bombing coalition, as well as providing sharper targeting information and logistics.American warships are reportedly helping Saudi vessels to blockade the Red Sea country to ensure that no arms find their way into Yemen. No arms supplies have yet been detected after American and Saudi naval forces began boarding suspected ships off the Yemeni coast.

This week the ill-named UN Security Council voted 14-0 to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on the people of Yemen who are fighting for their political independence. The resolution was drafted and supported by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies as well as the United States. Jordan, one of the 10 non-permanent members of the council, proposed the draft resolution. How flagrantly self-serving is that?

All of those countries mentioned are the main participants in the ad hoc foreign military coalition that has been bombing Yemen for the past three weeks. This coalition hasn't a legal mandate to carry out its military actions. Such actions therefore amount to criminal aggression.

Russia alone did not vote for the UNSC resolution this week, choosing instead to abstain, although it could have cast a veto as one of the five permanent members of the council. That may prove to be a costly mistake by Russia not to check the rampant aggression that Washington and its Arab allies are once again embarking on in another Middle Eastern country. The latest so-called resolution was passed while Yemen is being bombed into destruction by the coalition of foreign powers led by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The UNSC said nothing towards halting the airstrikes, never mind censoring the illegality of the foreign coalition — as it should do if it were indeed a "security council".

Last week, a Russian drafted resolution calling for a halt to the bombing and the implementation of a "humanitarian ceasefire" to allow aid agencies into Yemen was rejected by the UNSC. Separately, a peace plan put forward by Iran has also been spurned by Saudi Arabia.

The US-Saudi bombing can therefore continue raining down destruction on the people of Yemen, while any means to defend themselves are being denied. This is known as stacking the deck even though those stacking the deck are an international lynch mob with excessive numbers on their side and with warplanes, warships and satellites delivering shock-and-awe firepower. How pathetically cowardly can you get? But what this move shows is that the coalition armed-to-the-teeth by Washington is fearful of defeat in Yemen.

For the US-Saudi bombing of the Arab region's weakest country is not going well. Not well at all. Nearly three weeks of constant airstrikes have pounded Yemen into ruins, left hundreds of innocent civilians dead, and turned the country into a humanitarian disaster.

Yet, in spite of all this mayhem inflicted by wave after wave of American-supplied and coordinated warplanes, the supposed military objectives are in tatters.

The Houthi rebels, who kicked out the American and Saudi-backed puppet-regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi earlier this year, have steadily increased their military control over the country since the US-Saudi foreign coalition began bombing Yemen on March 26. The Houthis are spearheading the popular uprising against the old regime. When Saudi Arabia and the gang of other Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf

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monarchies, declared their air strikes on Yemen the assault was said to be aimed at two objectives: crushing the Houthi rebels and driving them back to their tribal base in the northern hinterland; and, secondly, to reinstate the regime of exiled deposed leader Hadi.The latter is holed up in Saudi capital Riyadh awaiting further instructions from his masters, while being given prestigious platform in the New York Times to write oped pieces whitewashing the slaughter being carried out in his name.

Neither of the US-Arab objectives is remotely near achievable. The Houthis appear to have galvanised even more popular support among the Yemeni population. Ordinary Yemenis have been outraged by what they see as foreign aggression on their country. This broad-based support cuts across tribal and sectarian religious lines, thus disproving Saudi and Western claims that the Houthis are a Shiite proxy serving Iranian regional ambitions.

Saudi Arabia in particular is in a quandary about what to do next. It can't win from an air war alone, despite the massive firepower at its disposal. And the oil-rich kingdom is loath to send in ground troops fearful of how the battle-hardened Houthis could drag the invader into a disastrous guerrilla war. Such an outcome could end up destabilising the House of Saud, beset by its own internal tensions among its restive and oppressed population.Egypt and the other Gulf Arab dictatorships are talking with bravado about "joint military exercises" being conducted from Saudi territory.

But none of these countries appear bold enough to take on a ground war inside Yemen. Even Pakistan, which earlier had offered military forces for a Saudi-led invasion of Yemen, has lately backed away from that perilous idea.

Washington realises too that its Arab allies are in no shape to take on a land assault. It is reportedly telling the Saudis to focus air strikes on pushing back the rebels from Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and to forget about the other stated objective of re-installing the Hadi regime — at least in the short-term.

The Saudis have even resorted to sending in thousands of al-Qaeda-linked Takfiri brigades relocated from Syria to join up with al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. But the Houthis, joined by remnants of the Yemen Army, have managed to thwart the jihadist mercenaries in the Central and Eastern provinces.That is why the UN "Insecurity Council" was called upon this week by the Saudis and their Arab allies — no doubt under US tutelage — to impose an arms blockade on Yemen. With support from Washington, the move has nothing to do with seeking an end to violence in Yemen. Far from it. It is rather a desperate attempt to stack the deck in favour of the US-sponsored Arab coalition bombing Yemen. That coalition is facing an embarrassing defeat in Yemen and needs to accrue an unfair advantage in its futile attempt to bomb the country into submission. The wording of the resolution not only calls for the disarming of the rebels. It also wants them to surrender territory that they have gained over recent weeks.Unwilling to invade a hostile territory and unable to win from an aerial blitzkrieg, despite awesome firepower and shocking atrocities against the civilian population, the American-Saudi lynch mob wants the legalistic mechanism of the UN to aid and abet its nefarious purpose in Yemen.

Saudis will have to hit Qaeda in Yemen: analysts

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AQAP exploiting the chaos Taking advantage of Hadramawt being generally spared the air raids, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized Mukalla airport and a military base full of heavy weaponry. "While e the coalition is busy with its job (striking Huthis), AQAP is benefiting from the situation by seizing positions," said Mathieu Guidere, Islamic studies professor at the University of Toulouse in France. He argues that if the coalition succeeds in defeating the Huthis, "the next step will be to tackle AQAP which also threatens the legitimate authority in Yemen". However, opening a second front now would complicate Riyadh's task.

Author: AFPApril 19, 2015 With its campaign against Yemeni rebels at full throttle, Saudi Arabia has spared Al-Qaeda which has capitalised on the chaos, but experts say Riyadh will have to hit them eventually. Faced with the Shiite rebels' march on Aden, President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's southern refuge, Riyadh assembled a Sunni-Arab coalition that launched a campaign of air strikes on March 26. Since then, coalition warplanes have pounded Huthi positions and those if its allies across the country, as Sunni tribesmen joined the fight against the rebels. "The growing confessional nature of the conflict definitely gives the extremists on both sides a bigger margin for manoeuvre, so fighting Al-Qaeda might not seem like the most urgent priority," said Elie al-Hindy, political science professor at Notre Dame University in Lebanon. This might explain why Riyadh did not react when Al-Qaeda on April 2 seized Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt province. Experts have spoken of an adverse effect of the military intervention, evoking a "circumstantial alliance" between Riyadh -- cradle to the austere Wahabism school of Islam -- and Al-Qaeda, which considers Shiites to be heretics. Saudi Arabia has been in war with Al-Qaeda for more than a decade, hitting what it calls the "deviant group" with an iron fist. "A de facto alliance can be ruled out," Hindy said.

AQAP exploiting the chaos Taking advantage of Hadramawt being generally spared the air raids, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized Mukalla airport and a military base full of heavy weaponry. "While e the coalition is busy with its job (striking Huthis), AQAP is benefiting from the situation by seizing positions," said Mathieu Guidere, Islamic studies professor at the University of Toulouse in France. He argues that if the coalition succeeds in defeating the Huthis, "the next step will be to tackle AQAP which also threatens the legitimate authority in Yemen".

However, opening a second front now would complicate Riyadh's task. So key ally Washington is doing its share by pressing its campaign of drone attacks against the jihadists. AQAP acknowledged this week that its ideologue Ibrahim al-Rubaish was killed in a drone attack near Mukalla. And late on Saturday, three other militants died in the same manner in the southern province of Shabwa. Since last year, Yemen's government has been caught between the Huthi rebels in the north and Al-Qaeda in the southeast. But as the rebels allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh advanced on the south after seizing Sanaa, government forces collapsed and the president fled to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s deepening isolation in Yemen, Author: Week in ReviewPosted April 19, 2015 Pakistan rebuffs Saudi kingdom on Yemen In an unusual and stinging rebuke, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif this week rejected Saudi Arabia’s request to join its military campaign in Yemen.

Bruce Riedel writes: "The Pakistani leader reportedly believes that if the Saudis enter into a ground war in Yemen — with or without Pakistani forces — it will become a quagmire. They have simply 'bitten off more than they can chew.' The Egyptian experience in Yemen, in

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which Egypt had up to 20,000 casualties in the 1960s fighting the same Zaydi tribes that back the Houthis, figures prominently in Pakistani thinking, especially in the army."The Wall Street Journal reported that 648 civilians have been killed since the start of the Saudi airstrikes, which have hit hospitals, schools and a refugee camp. US officials have quietly begun to express reservations about the Saudi campaign targeting one of the poorest countries in the world.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who met with US President Barack Obama in Washington this week, warned that the Saudi attacks in Yemen could be a catalyst for a broader sectarian war. Adnan Abu Zeed reports from Baghdad that the Yemen war is deepening Sunni-Shiite animosity among Iraqis.

Mohammad Ali Shabani writes that Iran’s proposal for a diplomatic solution appears a more mature approach to addressing Yemen’s civil war, compared with Saudi Arabia’s military intervention: "While it is unclear when the war in Yemen will end, what is clear is that Iranian diplomacy is proving to be an effective response to Saudi money and firepower. And with the goals of the Yemen war increasingly muddled, Saudi Arabia and its allies may soon find themselves bogged down in a quagmire."

In a speech in Beirut on April 17, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah picked up Iran’s call for negotiations and an end to airstrikes. Ali Hashem reports: “On Iran’s readiness for dialogue, Nasrallah indicated that Tehran is ready to talk with Saudi Arabia, yet it is Saudi Arabia that is 'being stubborn because it has failed in all countries, in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and it is seeking a success before sitting down at the negotiation table.'”The debate over the war in Yemen has even divided the Muslim Brotherhood, writes Ahmed Fouad: "Amid the Brotherhood’s rejection of the participation of Egyptian forces in Operation Decisive Storm, both the Islah Party (the Brotherhood’s political arm in Yemen) and Yemeni Brotherhood activist Tawakkol Karman expressed their support for the operation. They thanked all of the Arab forces participating in the operations and did not criticize the Gulf or Egyptian forces, which Karman specifically praised on Twitter."

More on Khamenei’s "main message" Reflecting on the comment by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on April 9 — "If the other side avoids its amphibology [ambiguity] in the [nuclear] talks, it'll be an experience showing it's possible to negotiate with them on other issues" — Seyed Hossein Mousavian suggests a "catalogue of possible areas for cooperation" between the United States and Iran, including "the fight against the Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, the protracted Syrian crisis and the unfolding crisis in Yemen," as well as "combating extremism and terrorism and drug trafficking in the Middle East." As reported by Ali Hashem and noted in this column last week, Khamenei’s statement "might be the main message to come out of the nuclear framework."

Iranian activists skeptical While Iranians overwhelmingly appear to support the nuclear talks, Behdad Bordbar reports that many activists are nonetheless skeptical that a successful nuclear agreement would translate into improvements in human rights."Although the activists who spoke to Al-Monitor expressed skepticism that a nuclear deal would immediately produce a better human rights situation in Iran, many did agree that better economic conditions were necessary for improving their standard of living, which has been reduced as a result of economic hardship," Bordbar writes.

Israel: Russian missile sale a "knockout blow"? Ben Caspit writes that the Russian decision to lift its hold on the sale of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran was a "knockout blow" to US reassurances about Israeli security."Even as the Americans attempted to explain, convince and demonstrate that sanction removal was not yet final; even as they said that there was no intention of lifting sanctions until everything would be completely clear and settled; that the rate and timing of sanction

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removal had not yet been decided upon; and that the United States opposed the immediate lifting of sanctions the minute that the final agreement would be signed — along comes Putin and delivers a knockout blow to the whole theory," Caspit reported from Jerusalem.

Paul Saunders considers the timing of the Russian announcement "remarkable." The Iranian contract for purchase of the missile system had been agreed in 2007, but Russia halted the sale in 2010 as a gesture to the West and Israel in dealing with Iran. Just last week, Saunders predicted that Russia would proceed with the sale, but at the conclusion of the nuclear talks. Saunders speculates that "Moscow will need Iran’s goodwill if a nuclear agreement leads to the removal of UN sanctions; Russia’s companies will likely have considerable competition from China, India and Europe even if the United States maintains some of its unilateral sanctions." Russian President Vladimir Putin may also be sending a message to the West and hard-liners in his own base that Russia is not a go along/get along follower of the US lead with Iran, and looking out for its own interests. There might also be a connection to Russia's opposition to the positioning of US missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.

Good Friday massacre in Aleppo Edward Dark reports from Aleppo on the unrelenting misery of the city’s Christians, including an attack on April 10, Good Friday, which many consider to be the holiest day on the Christian calendar."As rebel rockets and shells rained down through the night on the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Sulaimaniyah in west Aleppo, just a short distance from one of the city’s many front lines, there was mass panic as buildings collapsed, killing and injuring dozens, while others remained trapped under the rubble. Residents began to flee in the darkness, not really knowing where to head to as ambulances, fire trucks and rescue workers attempted to tackle the ongoing carnage. The atmosphere of fear and terror was exacerbated by a city in a perpetual state of darkness with almost no power and limited communication and Internet access following the collapse of vital infrastructure after the provincial capital of Idlib was taken over by Islamist groups on March 28," Dark writes.Dark continues: "As regional and global attention shifts to other hotspots such as Yemen, the Good Friday 'massacre' in Aleppo will be just another blip — a footnote in a long list of other massacres and atrocities soon forgotten by a global public opinion that has grown accustomed and weary of the endless horrors of Syria. Compassion fatigue rules the day."

Al-Monitor has previously reported on Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil’s appeal to the UN Security Council last month to protect Christians and other minorities persecuted by the Islamic State (IS), and to reverse the exodus of these populations from the region.

Mohammed al-Khatieb reports from Aleppo: "IS’ two suicide attacks on the headquarters of the Sham Front cannot be interpreted as a mere message to the front. They should be seen as a prelude to further escalation, which will result in inevitable confrontation between the two sides (IS and Syrian rebels). IS is taking advantage of the fact that the balance is currently tipped in its favor on this front, especially in the absence of the international coalition and the dispersal of rebels forces. This is not to mention that the regime is now preoccupied with the attacks on Aleppo’s northern countryside in its quest to impose a siege on the city of Aleppo."

A return to "zero problems?" The odd sight of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan walking hand in hand with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran just days after he lashed out at Iran for its attempt to "dominate the region" may be an attempt by Ankara to tilt away from a less confrontational and sectarian policy. Maybe.

Semih Idiz writes: "The AKP [Justice and Development Party] government has learned the hard way that its over-ambitious policies did not tally with the region’s bitter, age-

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old realities, which appear unlikely to change anytime soon. Ankara found instead that it is being sucked into crises with potentially dangerous results for Turkey."

The so-called Arab Spring had spurred Erdogan and his AKP acolytes to consider his "zero problems with neighbors" approach to foreign policy as "spineless and demeaning for a regional power such as Turkey, which they believed had to play a primary role in reorganizing the Middle East. That dream seems to be over now.

"Western diplomats in Ankara, talking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, also welcome any move by Ankara toward the middle ground, saying this would enable Turkey to play a much greater and more positive role in the region than it does today."They argue, however, that this will be contingent on Erdogan’s shedding of his Sunni-based ideological orientation in earnest, and moving toward a genuinely nonsectarian line."

ADEN, April 7 (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants stormed a remote Yemeni border post with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, killing at least two soldiers including the senior border guard officer, sources in Yemen's eastern province of Hadramawt said. They said the attackers took over the base near Manwakh, about 440 km (270 miles) northeast of the capital Sanaa. The attack occurred less than a week after al Qaeda militants attacked the Arabian Sea port of Mukalla. An alliance of Hadramawt tribal fighters advanced into Mukalla two days later to drive out al Qaeda, but residents say the militants remain in control of around half of the town. Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the powerful regional wing of the global jihadist movement, has been a force for years in eastern and central Yemen, from where it has sought to launch attacks on Western targets. AQAP militants appear to have exploited the turmoil, breaking into Mukalla's prison last week to free one of their local leaders and striking at the border post on Tuesday

"Saudi Arabia has admitted its defeat in Yemen and it is now looking for a decent way out of Yemen," a military observer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told FNA on Wednesday, adding that Riyadh's defeat in its Yemen invasion has already been declared by foreign military assessors to top authorities in the Saudi capital.

• Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers on Monday, April 6, said that the Saudi-led operation in Yemen has the support of Yemenis in the Kingdom and the international community because it seeks to restore the legitimate government and bring peace and stability to that war-torn nation.

• The Secretary-general of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, has claimed that Saudi Arabia will suffer a great defeat in Yemen. In a speech given on Monday he predicted a defeat which would "dismay the Saudi dynasty," in reference to the military operation, called "Decisive Storm", which the country is currently conducting against Houthi militias in Yemen. Speaking to Al-Ahbariyya, the Syrian regime television channel, Nasrallah stated that Saudi Arabia is trying to reconquer Yemen, which is said to be under the control of Iran. "The claim that Yemen is under the influence or control of Iran is strongly insubstantial. If Saudi Arabia cannot control Yemen, neither can the US. We consider the operation to be a joint Saudi-American attack" "Saudi Arabia pays money to finance conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. They also have media sources and imams giving fatwas to legitimize those operations. Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen because it has been defeated in previous wars. It is trying to accomplish what it could not when it used special agents, by using its army in a coalition-backed military operation. Trying to establish dialogue will mean surrender for the Houthis," he added.

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Senior Iranian officials call ISIS 'American proteges,' warn of imminent Saudi demiseAddressing worshipers in Tehran, Iranian leaders decried Saudi Arabia's "blood bath" in Yemen and warned the US of deceitful behavior in negotiations over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

Iran marks the 36th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. (photo credit:screenshot) On the heels of the escalating conflict in Yemen and an emerging deal with the international community, Iran's political and military elite have not cooled their fiery rhetoric, laying the blame for regional crises on the US and Saudi adversaries. According to FARS news, while addressing an audience at Tehran University on Friday, Iranian

Ground Force Commander Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, put the onus for the transnational turmoil wrought by Sunni jihadists on Washington, declaring that "the ISIL (Islamic State), Boko Haram and al-Nusra have been created in line with the US strategy of religion against religion which seeks to impair the divine face of Islam."

Without fail, Pourdistan also linked the White House's alleged conjuring of global jihadism to its support for Israel, suggesting that "the American and European people's high tendency towards...[the] protection of the Zionist regime's security have caused the US to create the terrorist groups." Pourdistan seemed to echo remarks made by another senior Iranian official, the Supreme Leader Khamenei's adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, who had called the Islamic State "American Proteges" who "don't differentiate between Muslims sects" and prove themselves to be tools of Israel since they "show no enmity towards the Zionist regime". As Pourdistan doled out his dose of rhetorical scolding against the US and Israel, another senior Iranian figure, the Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahhedi Kermani, turned his attention to the Islamic Republic's Sunni foe across the gulf. Possibly speaking to the same audience, Kermani told the faithful gathered for Friday prayers in Tehran that Saudi actions in Yemen had shown their "imprudence", "disgrace" and that recent development show that the House of Saud is teetering on the brink of destruction.

According to Iran's state owned Press TV news service, Kermani asserted that Riyadh's nearly month long bombing campaign has "triggered a bloodbath in Yemen" that has killed, according to the Ayatollah, "2,500 innocent people", a figure that contrasts with numbers provided by the UN's deputy secretary-general for human rights. In an interview with al-Jazeera earlier this month, the UN official suggested that only some 600 people, half of which were civilians have perished in the conflict waged between the Saudi led coalition and the Iranian back Shi'ite Houthi militia who are posed to take over the country. Kermani did not hesitate to further involve religion into the already sectarian conflict between the two Islamic adversaries, demanding that the Saudi Monarchy abide by Quranic dictum on war if they truly believed in the scripture of the holy book.

Kermani, perhaps unable to resist a parting shot at the White House, also warned the US against what he suggested maybe deceitful behavior regarding the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Tehran and P5+1 countries. Both sides are to draft a final agreement by June and while Karmani did not specify what trickery he suspected Washington of engaging

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in, it may involve suspicions that the US may try to use Iran's own aggressive stance in the region - it's involvement in Syria, Iraq and Yemen- as a diplomatic bargaining chip.

In March US President Barack Obama delivered a message of support to Saudi Arabia's newly crowned King Salman, lending approval to Riyadh's interventionist policies in Yemen, long a battle-field for Washington's controversial drone campaign against al-Qaida militants.

Yet the ongoing turmoil has forced the US to freeze its operations in Yemen, a setback that the Saudi effort may be able to reverse. The return of deposed pro-Western president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi would not only allow the US to resume its airborne missions in the Arabian peninsula's poorest country, it would also minimize Iran's expansion into Saudi Arabia's backdoor.

9 March, Saudi Arabian authorities are increasing the number of their beheadings to the point that three were carried out on a single day this past week – all part and parcel of the government’s attempt to showcase itself as powerful and in control. “The Saudi authorities want to show everyone they are strong, people can rely on them to keep the security and the safety in the kingdom,” said one Saudi source who was afraid to be named, Agence France-Presse reported. “They certainly don’t want to seem soft,” said Toby Matthiesen, a research fellow in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Cambridge, speaking about Saudi’s leadership, AFP reported. “[But] I don’t think it’s going to frighten Daesh,” the Arabic term for ISIS, he said.

Late March 2015, The desire and ability of a large and well-resourced Houthi movement to fight a long war should not be underestimated, especially should Iran decide to double down in Yemen and drag Saudi Arabia and its other adversaries into a war of attrition. With the intervention in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s military is/was trying to kill several birds with one stone. In the near term, it is safeguarding the country from what Riyadh perceives as an immediate military threat posed by advancing pro-Iranian Houthi rebels. In the medium-term, it is asserting its leadership of the Arab world and consolidating its control over what has recently been a tension-ridden Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In the long term, it is redressing what it sees as a geopolitical imbalance in the Middle East between itself and Iran. In recent years, power has tilted heavily toward Iran, in no small part due to U.S. retrenchment. Yemen has been a thorn in the side of Saudi Arabia (and other Arab Gulf countries, including Oman) since the latter was founded in the 1930s. The threats of Marxism, populism, and recently, Islamist extremism with the rise of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have made Yemen a high Saudi national security risk. Today, Saudi Arabia sees danger in the Shia Houthi rebel takeover of much of Yemen, particularly territory near the Saudi border. Last week, to drive back the Houthis, Saudi Arabia, in coordination with nine other countries (Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan, United Arab Emirates) launched a sustained air campaign and is blockading the Yemeni coast

April 7, TEHRAN (FNA)- Informed military observers underlined that Saudi Arabia has already acknowledged its defeat in Yemen in secret circles and is now looking for a reputable way to get out of the Quagmire. "Saudi Arabia has admitted its defeat in Yemen and it is now looking for a decent way out of Yemen," a military observer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told FNA on Wednesday, adding that Riyadh's defeat in its Yemen invasion has already been declared by foreign military assessors to top authorities in the Saudi capital. The observer said that after Saudi Arabia's failure in supporting fugitive Yemeni president

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Mansour Hadi, Riyadh has resorted to sending other mercenaries to help materialize its imaginations about victory in Yemen, but it has failed again.

Yemen; A Vietnam for Saudi army By Hassan Hanizadeh Tehran Times

06 April 2015, The vicious aggression of the Saudi army on Yemen’s residential areas and the advancement of the Saudi army in some parts of Yemen predict the advent of a new crisis in the region. Regional military experts hold the idea that in case the Saudi army keeps on with its advancement in northern parts of Yemen, it would be entangled in a quagmire, an exit of which would inflict heavy financial and human costs on the regime of Saudi Arabia. The experts believe that due to its internal peculiarities, Yemen has many similarities to Vietnam. They say Yemen will engulf Saudi Arabia as Vietnam did to the U.S., if Riyadh does not stop war on its neighbor. One reason to hold such a belief is that the people of Yemen have a relatively significant experience in exercising guerrilla wars. The Egyptian army commenced a prolonged and dragging aggression on Yemen in 1962, which led to the death of 27,000 Egyptians. At the time, Egypt’s then president Gamal Abdel Nasser dispatched four Egyptian divisions to Yemen to back republicans against the clergy-led rule of Zeidis. However, the skirmishes lasted beyond Abdel Nasser’s death in 1970 and inflicted heavy human and financial losses on the Egyptian army and government. The 1967 war between Israel and Egypt, which resulted in a total defeat of Egyptians and the Israeli army’s partial occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, Sharm-ul-Sheikh, and Al-Arish, was the outcome of Egypt’s unjustified interference in Yemen’s civil war. For its tribal and religious outlook, Saudi Arabia, with its political miscalculations, tries to alter Yemen’s realities to its own benefit as it holds an adversarial perspective against Shia Houthis in Yemen. Yemenis, particularly the Ansarullah movement, who played a key role in the 2012 revolution in the Arab country against the regime of former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, have tried to prevent the interference of Saudi Arabia and some other members of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council in their country’s internal affairs. Saudi Arabia was behind preparing the condition to impose Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh, on the Yemeni nation as a president, without holding a general election. On the other hand, the fact that the Yemeni government institutions remained intact as they used to before the revolution meant a blatant confiscation of the Yemeni revolution. This prompted Ansarullah revolutionaries to initiate measures against Saudi elements in the new government of Yemen in 2014. However, Saudi Arabia has become greatly concerned with the penetration of Ansarullah in Yemen’s power structure and has been trying to interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs and isolate and marginalize the Ansarullah movement. The Saudi regime holds the idea that the Houthis, for their inclination toward the Shia school of Islam, are an offspring of Iran. This is while the Houthis are an integral part of Yemen’s social structure. Houthis in Yemen make up 15 percent of the 15 million population of Zeidis, who exercise dramatic influence in northern Yemen. However, Saudi Arabia tries to drive this massive group out of the power structure. From 2004 through to 2010, Saudi Arabia, enjoying the support of the former regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, organized six land and aerial assaults against Houthis, in which thousands of Houthis were killed. During these assaults, Saudis used chemical weapons against the Houthi population. However, due to the Saudis’ financial and economic influence, the international community, particularly human rights organizations, showed no reaction to the Saudis’ use of weapons of mass destruction. This gave rise to the objections of the Ansarullah, the political wing of Houthis, against Saudis’ military and political interference in

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Yemen’s internal affairs. The situation in the Arab country seems to be deteriorating seven months into the internal crisis and the interference of Saudi Arabia and some members of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council in the country’s internal affairs. The presence of the Israeli regime’s warplanes along Saudi Arabia’s fighter jets for the bombardment of Yemeni people has prepared the ground for the region to enter into a brand new crisis. Should this crisis pass beyond Yemen’s borders and should Saudi Arabia keep interfering in Yemen militarily, it is certain that Yemen would turn into a new Vietnam for the region, with the international community unlikely to be able to put a stop to such a crisis.

Saudi backing of the Afghan jihad was an opportunity to remind multiple audiences of its sincere commitment to Islamic causes around the globe. The attraction is that Wahhabism and its larger Salafi tradition are in a way surprisingly modern. They offer young urbanites clear boundaries, classifications and, most important, a blueprint for changing the self and the world through action. One cannot get more modern than that..

• The second reason for the continuous suspicion of Saudi Arabia among observers relates to its Wahhabi Islamic ideology.

• When extremists vow to kill infidels and avenge injustices inflicted on the Muslim “umma” (community) around the globe, they justify their acts through religious interpretations at the heart of the Wahhabi tradition, which is known for its call to dissociate Muslims from infidels, maintain clear boundaries of piety and propriety and lead a life uncontaminated by the trappings of Western values and norms.

• This religious interpretation is not an invention of the Saudis, but is a long tradition among a small, insignificant subgroup of the Sunni Muslim world known as Salafiyya (or Salafis).

• One must know the material conditions that have compelled and continue to lead people to join jihadi brigades, and why these conditions make the old fragmented Wahhabi discourse resonate among Muslims, albeit a minority of the youth among them.

At the core of this disregard for human rights is the religious influence. The problem for Saudi Arabia is the reliance of the royal family on the extremist Wahhabi version of Islam. Article 1 of the 1992 Saudi Basic Law of Governance states, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic State… Its constitution is the Holy Koran, and the Sunni Traditions of the Prophet.” Illustrating the connection, King Fahd in 1986 changed his title from “His Majesty” to “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” Mecca and Medina. Sharia law is the basis of the legal system. Because of its alliance with Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia has been the world’s largest funder and promoter of jihadism. It has contributed to the explosion of Islamist terrorism around the world. More than $100 billion has been spent on exporting the Wahhabi jihadist interpretation of Islam.

Should a civil war erupt in Yemen, Al-Qaeda would find an opportunity to maneuver, recruit and arm in the ensuing chaos. As we all know, terrorist organizations sustain themselves on chaos and turmoil; What is happening in Yemen is not just a coup against legitimacy or an attempt to impose a new reality by force of arms. Rather, it is an attempt to tilt the regional balance of power in favor of Iran and its allies. The complete fall of Yemen into the hands of the Houthis would mean that Saudi Arabia would be surrounded on two sides—Yemen and

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Iraq—by Iran. Egypt considers the security of the Bab El-Mandeb strait as part of its own national security.

Saudi Arabia has become the world’s biggest importer of weapons and defensive systems, overtaking the previous record holder, India, according to a new report which examined the arms trade across 65 countries last year. Data revealed by the IHS Jane 360 in its Global Defence Trade Report, shows that Saudi Arabia spent over $6.4 billion on defense purchases in 2014, dislodging India from top spot. India’s spending stood at $5.57 billion, placing it second. The Kingdom boosted its arms imports by 54 percent over the past year. Together with its Persian Gulf neighbor, United Arab Emirates, both countries imported $8.6 billion of weapons – more than the whole of western Europe combined. The biggest “beneficiary of the strong Middle Eastern market” is the United States, with $8.4 billion worth of Middle Eastern exports in 2014, compared to $6 billion in 2013, said the report. Other countries that top the list of arms suppliers to the Middle East include the United Kingdom with $1.9 billion, Russia with $1.5 billion, France with $1.3 billion and Germany with $1 billion.

Opinion: Saudi Arabia is surrounded on two sides 1 We have hard many warnings, from different parties, that Yemen is on the brink of a devastating civil war. After seizing control of the capital Sana’a and several other strategic areas, including seaports and airports, the Houthi militia is now preparing to take over oil and gas-rich areas including the strategic energy hub of Ma’rib province. After sensing the imminent danger that they are facing, this has prompted Ma’rib’s tribes to threaten to destroy oil facilities and power stations if they should ultimately fail to hold off the Houthi advance. At the same time as all this, tribes in other areas are complaining about the Houthi takeover of the main organs of the Yemeni state, something they regard as a fatal blow to the understandings achieved during the National Dialogue. Yemen falling into the hands of Houthis or the eruption of a devastating civil war would pose a serious threat to the security of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf as well as to the Bab El-Mandeb strait, which in turn is strategically important to Egypt. It is no secret that Iran has been supporting the Houthis in order to achieve influence in Yemen, along the lines of the influence it has managed to garner in Iraq, all the while keeping an eye on Saudi Arabia. Moreover, despite being roundly defeated by Saudi Arabia, Al-Qaeda continues to fight and in Yemen has found a safe haven to plan new attacks.

Should a civil war erupt in Yemen, Al-Qaeda would find an opportunity to maneuver, recruit and arm in the ensuing chaos. As we all know, terrorist organizations sustain themselves on chaos and turmoil.

The scene in Yemen is dangerous and complex as political, tribal and sectarian dimensions intersect with partisan and regional interests. The crisis in Yemen would likely exacerbate the conflict in the region which extends from Syria and Lebanon to Iraq and Yemen and even further afield. There are reports indicating that Iran’s support of the Houthis increased following the events in Syria and the well-known regional consequences of the conflict there. There are also those who think that Iran’s interference in Yemen and backing of the Houthis must be viewed as a response to Gulf support for Bahrain. While Houthi leader Abdel Malik Al-Houhi has sought to deny that his group has any foreign backers, this argument is ultimately unconvincing given the plethora of information and evidence suggesting otherwise.

What is happening in Yemen is not just a coup against legitimacy or an attempt to impose a new reality by force of arms. Rather, it is an attempt to tilt the regional balance of power in

1 http://www.aawsat.net/2015/03/article55342068/opinion-saudi-arabia-is-surrounded-on-two-sides

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favor of Iran and its allies. The complete fall of Yemen into the hands of the Houthis would mean that Saudi Arabia would be surrounded on two sides—Yemen and Iraq—by Iran. This would also have repercussions in Egypt and Jordan, not just due to their ties to Riyadh, but also their own national strategic, political and security considerations.

Egypt considers the security of the Bab El-Mandeb strait as part of its own national security. With its security under threat in the Sinai Peninsula to the east and the border with Libya to the west, the last thing Cairo need is to see its maritime interests or ties with the Gulf—particularly Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait—threatened. As for Jordan, it remains threatened from Syria and Iraq and has always warned of what it describes as the “Iranian crescent.” Even if the Houthis fail to take full control of Yemen and the country slides into chaos and civil war, Saudi Arabia will be affected by this, in addition to the repercussions of the turmoil and war raging in Iraq. Here we only need to look at the frequent attempts to infiltrate the Kingdom’s borders from these two countries to get some idea of the threat that Riyadh would face. The situation requires urgent action to save Yemen and prevent it from sliding into an all-out civil war as well as to block Houthi attempts to extend their control by force of arms. For the time being hopes of stability in Yemen seem to hang on the efforts of UN Special Envoy Jamal Benomar. But the Houthis, who have violated all previous agreements, do not seem to be interested in a solution that does not allow them to secure full control of Yemen. This, in itself, is neither a solution, nor acceptable to anyone but the Houthis. The alternative would be a decisive Arab intervention in Yemen to support legitimacy. But what we mean by “intervention” here is more than resolutions and statements issued by the Arab League or calls for a unanimous action which do not see the light of day. Instead, capable and willing Gulf and Arab states should supply the legitimate authority and its allies with what it needs to enable them to regain the initiative. More than that, it is high time that calls for an Arab alliance to intervene in situations like this are answered. What is happening in the Arab world, from the devastation and division of countries to the fragmentation of armies and general deteriorating security situation is something that threatens everybody equally. Arab countries cannot afford to hesitate or wait for these fires to burn themselves out; they must take action now.

February 18, 2015 Saudi Arabia Must Help End Islamist TerrorismBy Michael Curtis In recent days, the dark ideology of Islamic terrorism has been implemented, among other places, by massacres in a kosher deli in Paris, in Belgium towns, outside a synagogue in Copenhagen, and in Libya where dozens of Christian Copts have been murdered. It must be countered.Destiny makes Saudi Arabia crucial in the war against terrorism. Despite the fact that is responsible for funding and supporting the development of jihad and Islamist terrorism, it must now change its strategy and transform itself into the key leader in the war against what has become the Islamist menace to all civilization, including its own.Saudi Arabia is a Janus-head personified, politically and religiously, by an agreement made in 1744 when the leader of the Saud family made a pact with the founder of Wahhabism, the extreme form of Sunni Islam. In exchange for their support of the Saud family, that family would protect followers of Wahhabism and adhere to its doctrine. The country still rests on that pact, an alliance between the royal family and the ulema, the religious elite of scholars. The wheels of change grind slowly in Saudi Arabia, a country led by a ruling family, the aging sons of the King Abdulaziz, the founder of the regime in 1932.Power is divided between the two sets of authority: the ulema control mosques, culture, and education; the monarchy controls foreign and military policy. But the religious authorities

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http://www.americanthinker.com/author/michael_curtis_1/


have considerable influence over government decisions, in the judicial and educational systems, and in religious and social behavior. The Council of Senior Ulama, advises the king on religious matters. The religious police force, Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, enforces dress codes and other personal behavior.The House of Saud is an autocratic and virtually absolute monarchy, now headed by King Salman aged 79, who had been governor of Riyadh for 48 years. The country developed its economy and lives on its oil wealth, possessing the largest oil reserves and being the biggest oil exporter in the world.The sins of Saudi Arabia are familiar. Everyone is aware of the lack of freedom in the kingdom, and especially its inequity regarding women who are treated as the property of male relatives. A number of reforms, introduced by the late King Abdullah, allow women to play a more visible role in public life. However, women are still restricted in many ways. They are still controlled by male guardians who must give them permission to travel, work, or get medical treatment. They are not legally permitted to drive a car.At the core of this disregard for human rights is the religious influence. The problem for Saudi Arabia is the reliance of the royal family on the extremist Wahhabi version of Islam. Article 1 of the 1992 Saudi Basic Law of Governance states, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic State… Its constitution is the Holy Koran, and the Sunni Traditions of the Prophet.” Illustrating the connection, King Fahd in 1986 changed his title from “His Majesty” to “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” Mecca and Medina. Sharia law is the basis of the legal system.Wahhabism sustains the country. It declares that it perpetuates the religious purity of the Prophet Muhammad, and commands obedience to the state. It propagates an ideology of hatred of Shias, as well as Christians and Jews. It believes in strict punishment for offenders. Little dissent is allowed, journalists are arrested and flogged, and criticism of its doctrine is severely punished. Human rights are violated by arbitrary arrest and secret trials. Estimates suggest that more than 5,000 people are political prisoners. Paradoxically, in spite of its lack of human rights Saudi Arabia was elected a member of the UN Human Rights Council for 2014-2016.Because of its alliance with Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia has been the world’s largest funder and promoter of jihadism. It has contributed to the explosion of Islamist terrorism around the world. More than $100 billion has been spent on exporting the Wahhabi jihadist interpretation of Islam. Saudi Arabia has funded more than 1500 mosques and madrassas (Islamic schools), has provided training for countless fundamentalist imans, financed media and publishing companies to issue textbooks advocating jihad, created fellowship programs to promote an extremist point of view in academic programs and cultural centers. Wahhabism is the ideological basis of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and terrorist groups throughout the world.

If Saudi Arabia is going to find solutions to the complex, interrelated problems with which it is confronted, it has to loosen its ties to and its reliance on Wahhabism. There are four basic problems.

• One problem is its decisions on the production and price of oil, and the impact of those decisions on the economies of outside countries: the U.S. shale industry, Russia, and especially on Iran.

• Another is the concern about President Barack Obama’s actions regarding a nuclear agreement with Iran.

• A third is the challenge to the Saudis and the ambition of Iran to become the dominant power in the Middle East.

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• But the fourth underlies the first three: it is the dominant threat to Saudi Arabia itself as well as the rest of the world of the continuing and expanding Islamist terrorism.

There are signs that the Saudis have begun to understand the Islamist threat they have done so much to unleash. They have gone so far as to censure President Obama for his weak, inadequate response to Islamic terrorism. In 2011, Saudi Arabia criticized the Obama administration for its withdrawal of support for Egyptian President Mubarak, and for giving some approval to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In contrast to the U.S., Saudi Arabia supported and assisted the military coup that overthrew Egyptian President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt. Above all the Saudis criticized Obama for his unseemly haste to court and negotiate with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani on nuclear issues.In a political surprise, Saudi Arabia, after being elected to a non-permanent rotating seat on the UN Security Council on October 17, 2013, turned it down, accusing the body of “double standards” that prevent it from carrying out its duties and responsibilities in keeping world peace and security. In effect it was a reprimand of U.S. policy. The Saudis had given advance approval to the anticipated U.S. strike on Syria after President Assad had used chemical weapons to kill his own people. But Obama did not launch a punitive strike against Syria which had crossed the “red line,” he had drawn as an ultimatum, and the international community also failed to act. The Saudis fear that Obama will make a deal with Iran that will not effectively reduce its nuclear capacity. They are attempting, among other things, to check Iranian influence by providing funding for the Lebanese military, engaged in the struggle against Hizb’allah.These actions suggest that the Saudis are now conscious both of the havoc in the world resulting from jihadism and the danger of a powerful Iran. Saudi Arabia must go further and play a major role in extinguishing the flame of the dark Islamist ideology. Its royal family must limit the influence of Wahhabism in the country and the spread of its ideas abroad. By ending all funding of groups relating to terrorist activities, controlling the use of mosques and madrassas used for terrorist purposes, limiting the training of fundamentalist imams, and declaring that jihadism is not warranted by true Muslims, it can accomplish from within what the democratic West, so far, has been unable to do from without.

Tensions rise between Saudis, Russians Author: Paul J. Saunders Posted February 18, 2015 While the United States is widely considered Russia’s principal rival in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia may well be taking second place. Moreover, not unlike Moscow’s suspicions toward Washington, Russian officials and analysts have often seen a Saudi hand in problems closer to home, in Russia’s neighboring countries and even within Russia itself. Russian-Saudi tensions thus seem unlikely to lessen anytime soon. Some of the strains in Russia’s relations with Saudi Arabia derive from the kingdom’s long-standing role as one of America’s closest and strongest allies in the Middle East. Yet, even as Saudi Arabia’s alignment with Washington frustrates Russia in some areas, Riyadh’s differences with the United States — such as over its aid to Syrian militants that neither Washington nor Moscow find to be acceptable — create trouble in others.

Saudi Arabia’s Cold War-era cooperation with the United States in supporting Afghanistan’s mujahedeen fighters against the 1979 Soviet invasion is the foundation for much of Russia’s distrust of Saudi Arabia. This is less a historical grievance, however, than a long-term and continuing problem for Russia, in that it ultimately contributed to a civil war in post-Soviet Tajikistan, an ungoverned Afghanistan exporting extremism, the spread of terrorists and drugs across the Eurasian space, and — after the attacks of Sept. 11 — a long-term US and NATO presence in Central Asia. Worst of all from a Russian perspective has been the spillover from

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Afghanistan to Russia’s own North Caucasus regions — especially Chechnya, but also Dagestan and Ingushetia. Russian officials have long argued that al-Qaeda terrorists from Afghanistan have not only operated in these regions, but assisted in attacks in Moscow and other cities across Russia.

At times, Russia’s suspicions have also extended to Saudi nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Russia. While US and European media have focused almost exclusively on Russian concerns about Western-funded pro-democracy groups operating in the country, former Federal Security Service Director and current Secretary of Russia's Security Council Nikolai Patrushev has in the past specifically accused the Saudi Red Crescent (and a handful of Western NGOs) in public remarks as being involved in “espionage operations” with the goal of “trying to weaken Russian influence in the former Soviet Union and the international arena as a whole.” Patrushev suggested that the groups were behind unrest in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in 2003-2005. Saudi Arabia’s competition with Iran creates additional problems for Russia. Immediate among these is likely the civil war in Syria, in which Riyadh is of course extensively supporting forces seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad, whom Russia and Iran are helping to stay in power. Given the tight limits on what the United States has been willing to do for the anti-Assad coalition in Syria, Saudi Arabia has been essential in preventing its defeat and — from Moscow’s point of view — in creating the pre-conditions necessary to establish the so-called Islamic State. As Alexey Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on International Affairs, said recently, the “Islamist or Wahhabi monarchies in the Gulf like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain, they seek to model the Syrian regime after their own” and “the armed opposition … are the same kind of people who blow up American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and kill NATO troops in Afghanistan.” At the same time, Riyadh is looking for allies against Iran inside the former Soviet space — particularly in Azerbaijan, which borders Iran to the northwest. The Saudi role in Afghanistan can of course also be interpreted as an effort to encircle Iran and ensure that Tehran’s leaders must look not only west but east.

Finally — and most damaging at present — many in Moscow suspect that Saudi Arabia is deliberately depressing oil prices to damage Russia’s economy, either on its own or in collaboration with the United States. The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, which some see as linked to Russia’s intelligence services, recently published a study making this case. A spokesman for state-owned oil company Rosneft likewise accused Saudi Arabia of “political manipulation” of the oil price. Patrushev has publicly attributed the collapse of the USSR to a similar plot. Despite deep Russian concerns over Saudi conduct, Moscow clearly views the kingdom with respect as a formidable player. After all, with an economy only one-third the size of Russia’s — and about one-fifth its population — Saudi Arabia has an annual military budget that ranks just behind Russia’s (Moscow’s is the world’s third largest, and Saudi Arabia’s its fourth largest) and is only $8 billion smaller. At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s better-run oil-dependent economy has outperformed Russia’s for most of the last decade, including during the two oil price collapses in 2009 and today.

One mark of this respect was the fact that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended King Abdullah’s January 2015 funeral. Another is that in each of five different stories about Abdullah’s death, the Russian state media agency ITAR-TASS referred to the late monarch as “King Abdullah, one of the world’s most powerful people.” This is no accident. President Vladimir Putin himself said, “The deceased king was known as a wise and consistent statesman and politician, a leader loved and respected by his people and had a deserved authority on the international scene.” Indeed, perhaps most interesting is the extent to which

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senior Russian officials have refrained from publicly criticizing Saudi Arabia and its leaders — they are not nearly so shy in expressing their views of many other US allies. The fact that Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are this careful suggests that notwithstanding widespread negative attitudes toward the kingdom’s foreign policy, Moscow is not eager to provoke Saudi Arabia any more than is necessary. From a certain perspective, that might just be the highest form of respect the Russian government can offer.

Saudis struggle to reconcile IS fight, Wahhabism, Madawi Al-Rasheed February 11, 2015 It has been alleged by Zacarias Moussaoui that al-Qaeda’s database of donors contains the names of prominent Saudi princes. Moussaoui is currently serving life in prison in the United States as the purported 20th hijacker in the 9/11 plot to destroy the World Trade Center towers in New York. Moussaoui singled out Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former director of intelligence who also served as ambassador in Washington for a short time after 9/11; Prince Bandar bin Sultan, national security adviser and ambassador in Washington during 9/11; and Walid bin Talal, who heads a global business and media empire. Moussaoui’s testimony turned even more sensational when he claimed that he had had a meeting with a Saudi Embassy official to discuss blowing up Air Force One. Proving or disproving such claims is currently beyond any outside observer’s capabilities given the absence of evidence, and if such evidence exists, its not being made public knowledge. There is also the question of Moussaoui’s mental health. The published 9/11 Commission Report (2004) omitted several pages related to Saudi Arabia, thus leading to a plethora of speculation and conspiracy theories. It is unclear whether the omission was a deliberate move to protect the identities of people in Saudi Arabia, the United States or both or to salvage the US-Saudi alliance during its worst crisis since its inception after World War II. Without transparency, the Saudis’ association with 9/11 will continue to be a subject of debate and controversy for three primary reasons.

First, the Saudi role is well documented in US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policy in the 1980s to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and end the Cold War. Part of this strategy was to unleash Islamic fundamentalism, in particular its jihadi aspirations, against those declared an enemy of the Muslims, in this example, the godless communists. This coincided with the Saudis’ pan-Islamic agenda, developed by King Faisal in the 1960s, to counter threats from Arab leftists and nationalists and gain legitimacy among local Muslim constituencies, especially after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which surprised Islamists across the Muslim world. The Saudis were seriously worried about the Iranians, because the Shiite minority had succeeded in establishing an Islamic dream state, whereas they had not. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia feared losing popularity among Muslims around the world, who were newly enchanted by the defiant Iranian mullahs and chants of “Death to the Great Satan,” at the time the “American imperialists.” As a result, Saudi backing of the Afghan jihad was an opportunity to remind multiple audiences of its sincere commitment to Islamic causes around the globe. Instrumentalizing Islam, and especially sponsoring and propagating radical interpretations of its sacred texts, in an international conflict with wealthy powers, like the United States, proved to be disastrous. Both the United States and its Saudi partner have paid a high price for the unintended consequences of this misguided foreign policy. The 9/11 attacks were only one instance of its long-term effects, the deadly wave of terrorism that swept Saudi Arabia between 2003-2007 being another. Until more files are opened, no one will know whether Osama bin Laden sought to wreak havoc on the US-Saudi relationship by hitting the United States after his Saudi sponsors declared him persona non grata in the early 1990s or whether Saudi princes were actually involved in attacking their most important protector. One should not forget that

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http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/abdullah-us-saudi-relations.html

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf


official Saudi Arabia is not simply a monarchy, but a fiefdom of multiple wealthy and powerful state actors whose interests do not always coincide. A prince pursuing his own personal interests might collide with the declared policy of the state or a branch of the state led by a rival princely faction.

The second reason for the continuous suspicion of Saudi Arabia among observers relates to its Wahhabi Islamic ideology. When extremists vow to kill infidels and avenge injustices inflicted on the Muslim “umma” (community) around the globe, they justify their acts through religious interpretations at the heart of the Wahhabi tradition, which is known for its call to dissociate Muslims from infidels, maintain clear boundaries of piety and propriety and lead a life uncontaminated by the trappings of Western values and norms. This religious interpretation is not an invention of the Saudis, but is a long tradition among a small, insignificant subgroup of the Sunni Muslim world known as Salafiyya (or Salafis). Before Saudi petrodollars, this narrow interpretation of Islam had little appeal to most Muslims. It was truly marginal. Saudi oil wealth and the quest for pan-Islamic hegemony, however, brought it from the margin to the center. Beginning in the 1970s, Wahhabism spread across the globe thanks to funds, institutions and new media sponsored by Saudi Arabia. Complicating matters was the existence of not one Wahhabism, but several trends within it, all of them with extremely conservative outlooks, especially in regard to gender issues, other Muslim sects and relations with non-Muslims.

Furthermore, Saudi Wahhabis were divided inside Saudi Arabia itself. There were those who promoted acquiescence, that is, total obedience to the ruler unless he blasphemed. Other more vigorous Wahhabis rejected this position, calling on Muslims to overthrow debauched rulers by resorting to violence. In the past, the latter Wahhabi offshoots inspired al-Qaeda and its like, and today they are appealing to the Islamic State (IS). As Wahhabis are in general concerned with the individual and the community, the two positions they take are inevitably political. Thus, there is no space for the quieter Wahhabi Salafis inside Saudi Arabia to be designated apolitical. They are political when they shun politics and outlaw dissent in attempts to change political realities. Assisted by oil wealth, the two branches of Wahhabism traveled worldwide along the transnational and global highways, beyond their limited and historically insignificant local Arabian niche. Wahhabism is today a fragmented religious tradition, opposed by many for its social conservatism and for unleashing a global terrorism crisis, but it continues to appeal to Muslims searching for a well-defined identity.

The attraction is that Wahhabism and its larger Salafi tradition are in a way surprisingly modern. They offer young urbanites clear boundaries, classifications and, most important, a blueprint for changing the self and the world through action. One cannot get more modern than that. Wahhabi insistence on fixing meaning and resorting to authentic texts offers an antidote to diluted values, hybridity and all the postmodern pastiches characteristic of contemporary life. The majority of Salafi Muslims seek comfort in personal struggles, a form of jihad, (C: the Greater Jihad) to live up to Wahhabi prescriptions amid the prohibited temptations of today’s world. It is only a small minority that is attracted to the branch of Wahhabism that advocates violent struggle, also a kind of jihad,( C: the lesser Jihad) to create a new Muslim first and then a state in which to live according to the strictest interpretations of Islam. Herein lies the appeal of IS and nostalgia for the caliphate and application of Sharia. In Saudi Arabia, those disappointed by the state, as the society sinks deeper into the material trappings of modernity, from shopping centers to electronic applications, are also divided into two camps. There are those who seek to change people’s behavior peacefully, by preaching and outlawing modern temptations. Among them would be

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the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, who launches verbal wars on Twitter and Facebook against corrupting influences as incubators of dissident against God, king and nation. On the other side are those who seek to overthrow the regime that opened the country’s borders not only to the material and non-material trappings of modernity, but also to the infidels who invented them.

The debate about Saudi Arabia’s real or alleged association with 9/11 reflects the ongoing contradiction in the country’s image as both a victim and an incubator of the Wahhabi religious tradition in its two varieties. Immediately after 9/11, the Saudi leadership, including Prince Nayef, minister of interior at the time, denied that Wahhabi interpretations had been a source of inspiration for the perpetrators. Instead, they blamed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood exiles in Saudi Arabia for radicalizing the nation’s youth. When terrorists struck Saudi Arabia itself, however, the state of denial gave way to soul searching that eventually led to acknowledging the contribution of the Wahhabi tradition, especially among homegrown jihadis. Saudi Arabia joined the war on terror, increased control over preachers, shuttered charities accused of funding terrorism and pledged to change its religious education curriculum. Currently, after four years of sponsoring various rebel groups in Syria, Saudi Arabia joined the international alliance against IS and contributed to the bombing campaign against its bases in Syria and Iraq. Given the similarities between the Saudi and IS “justice” systems — for example, the lashing, flogging and beheadings — it seems odd that a supposed caliphate pledging to apply Sharia in ways similar to its application in Saudi Arabia should be an enemy of the Saudis. These kinds of contradictions leave one puzzled by a situation in which the Saudi king and the self-proclaimed Caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, are rivals. Similarity can truly breed contempt. Acts of violence need justifying in the form of discourses that grant them legitimacy, and Wahhabism appears to be one of those discourses. It is potent because a sacred umbrella of religious texts and interpretations provoke emotional dispositions and provide authenticity and legitimacy beyond any secular source. In the context of the Arab world today, dying for faith seems more popular than dying for country and nation.

To fight the menace, however, it is not enough to simply declare war on Wahhabism or any other religious or secular source of inspiration for violence. One must know the material conditions that have compelled and continue to lead people to join jihadi brigades, and why these conditions make the old fragmented Wahhabi discourse resonate among Muslims, albeit a minority of the youth among them. We will continue to listen to the fantasies of Moussaoui and perhaps others to come until the intrigues of Arab dictators (including the Saudis among them) and their manipulation of religion and repression, the role of powerful international patrons (like the United States) and their intelligence services and the fate of marginalized Muslims in the suburbs of world and Arab capitals are exposed. For the time being, it seems that contrary to the most valued principle of justice, the presumption of innocence is suspended while awaiting transparent reports on the involvement of more actors in the 9/11 saga and the ongoing war in Syria. For the country and the victims of 9/11, Saudi Arabia will not remain innocent until proven guilty.

Regards Cees

Cees of 19 20/04/2015

al-qaeda chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2015 part 14-2-sa-blowback-9

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