So many Saudis support the aims of ISIS
Within a broad article by Peter Oborne, a British journalist writing in a US outlet, was this snippet, with my emphasis in bold:
Quote:
This is because ISIS is not a mutation of Islam, as Obama has asserted. It is all too faithful to the literalist Saudi interpretation of Sunni Islam as set out by its 18th-century founder Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Hence the extraordinary popularity of ISIS within Saudi Arabia itself. According to a recent poll in the Saudi-funded Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, an astonishing 92% of Saudis believe that ISIS conforms to the values of Islam and Islamic law.
Link:http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/...e-on-the-west/
Even leaving aside my sceptcism of polling in a place like KSA we know there is support for a harsh version of Islam, not to that extent.
The missiles we overlook: the Saudi's SSM
The Chinese surface to surface missiles (SSM) that the Saudi Strategic Missile Force have are IMHO overlooked, so good to see a review article with many links by a counter-proliferation SME:http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles...les-its-saber/
Quote:
Saudi Arabia clearly envisions its strategic missile force as a deterrent to the growing missile arsenals of its neighbors....Analysis of new bases near Ad-Dawadmi and Ash-Shamli suggest that Tel Aviv and Tehran remain the most important strategic targets for the Saudi Strategic Missile Force.....Some Saudi clerics and analysts describe the Houthi threat as more dangerous to the stability of the Kingdom than even the Islamic State. Like Iran, Yemen has purchased a significant number of Scud missiles from North Korea that might threaten Saudi Arabia if the government were to become hostile.
(Ends with) It is hardly surprising that, in such an environment, Saudi Arabia would seek to improve its ability to deter missile attacks. The display of the DF-3 missiles, along with Saudi Arabia's generally increased openness about its missile capabilities, is intended to ensure that those capabilities will be well enough understood by potential adversaries for Riyadh to enjoy their full deterrent value
Well that is reassuring or is it?
There are two other threads on Saudi Arabia, one on the sometimes fraught relationship with the USA and another on internal security. I expect there are posts elsewhere, notably over the reaction to a likely Iranian nuclear weapon capability.
ISIS incursion into KSA: the target?
Quote:
It later emerged that one of the dead soldiers was no ordinary border guard but the commander of Saudi Arabia’s northern border forces, Brigadier General Awdah al-Balawi. This suggests that the attack, far from being random or opportunistic, had been carefully targeted and perhaps based on inside information regarding the general’s whereabouts.
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...cal-links-isis
The wider problem:
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...it is in no position to confront Isis at the ideological level. The problem here is that Isis and the Saudis’ Islamic kingdom are ideologically similar, so attempts to challenge Isis on ideological grounds risk undermining the Saudi state too.
Another wall: to keep people in or out?
Quote:
The Saudis are building a 600-mile-long “Great Wall” - a combined fence and ditch - to separates the country from Iraq to the north. ....The proposal had been discussed since 2006, at the height of the Iraqi civil war, but work began in September last year after Isil’s charge through much of the west and north of the country gave it a substantial land border with the Kingdom to the south.
Link, which ahs a map and graphic:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-out-Isil.html
Saudi Arabia Plunges into an Abyss
Originally posted under Middle East General, but on second thought I believe it deserves it own thread for awhile.
John Robb provides an analysis on the ISIS attack on Saudi that is both interesting and flawed. He loses credibility when he implies ISIS coordinated the Paris attacks instead of ISIS's competitor for the Caliphate which is al-Qaeda. Nonetheless, the rest of the analysis is thought provoking.
Robb suggests the reduction of oil prices is principally directed at ISIS, but if ISIS picks up their operations the price of oil could quickly soar to $150.00 a barrel. That would result in weakening the West economically and strengthening ISIS (and Russia), so embracing the State Department's version of strategy, gee I hope that doesn't happen.
Robb also makes an interesting point that ISIS needs to keep moving to stay alive (attract recruits and funding). Overstated in some aspects, but I tend to agree there is an element of truth in this, which is why AQAP was quick to claim responsibility for the attacks in Paris. We now have market based jihad, where competitors are seeking to dominate the jihad market (recruits and funding). So far the competition is based on a zero-sum approach versus a win-win approach. I could see a future where the larger company buys out the smaller companies, but that will take time.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/...-an-abyss.html
Quote:
Here why this attack is significant.
It tells us that ISIS is starting to focus on Saudi Arabia --> with good reason. The reason is that there's simply no other way to unite the various groups under the ISIS banner. ISIS, like all open source movements, needs to keep moving in order to stay alive (like a shark). Right now, ISIS has stalled. A jihad to retake the holy sites from the corrupt regime in Riyadh can serve as a simple plausible promise that can reignite the open source war ISIS started, on a global scale.
Comparing Daesh and KSA legal punishments
A WaPo article 'How Saudi Arabia’s harsh legal punishments compare to the Islamic State’s', from which the Twitter image originates from. As the author concludes relationships with partners are rarely completly "black -v- white" regarding common standards:
Quote:
...for many Americans, the extremist group's rise is also bringing with it a renewed skepticism about American allies in the region.
Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...slamic-states/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7z1HcsCUAEliRF.jpg
Did ISIS strike across the border?
From Newsweek:
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Dozens of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters have infiltrated (Rafha) a Saudi Arabian border town via Iraq before melting away into the general population, according to claims by the terror group’s supporters on social media.
Link:http://www.newsweek.com/isis-attack-...te-town-302652
Wiki shows Rafha as having 80k inhabitants in 2010 and it is located close to the border. You may have to alter the scale to see the location:http://www.maplandia.com/saudi-arabi...rontier/rafha/
A rare look inside a Saudi prison
A WaPo journalist visits a Saudi jail for terrorists undergoing rehab:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...wpmk=MK0000203
How effective is this?
Quote:
Gen. Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the powerful Ministry of Interior, whose Mabahith secret police run the five high-security prisons....Turki said that about 20 percent of those who have gone through the rehabilitation program have returned to terrorism-related activities. Many rights activists think the failure rate is higher than Saudi officials admit.
Note in 2013 (Post 28) this was the failure rate:
Quote:
The percentage of those who rejoin the deviant minority does not exceed 10%.
So if we accept officialdom's statement the programme now has higher failure rate!
Saudi Arabia is emerging as the new Arab superpower
Not my title, but that in The Daily Telegraph and a short piece by:
Quote:
Nawaf Obaid is a Visiting Fellow and Associate Instructor at Harvard Kennedy School and a former strategic affairs advisor to the Saudi government.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...uperpower.html
Hardvard bio:http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/...waf_obaid.html
To date the interventioin in the Yemen hardly appears positive, ah well the Saudis will learn (again) and of course few nations have offered to shed their blood.
KSA is preparing itself in case Iran develops nuclear weapons
Another article by Nawaf Obaid (bio in previous post) and is hardly reassuring:
Quote:
Saudi Arabia has for past several years been laying the groundwork for a civil nuclear program with no PMDs (possible military dimensions). However, there is a strong possibility that the Kingdom might begin to engage in contingency planning for a defensive nuclear program with PMDs. This planning represents an emerging Saudi nuclear defence doctrine.
(Later) None should doubt that the Saudi scientific community possesses the know-how and technical infrastructure to realize this nuclear defense doctrine
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gene...r-weapons.html
Somehow I doubt KSA has such a national capability, given its track record in importing talent in the securitys ector and elsewhere. More likely the talent will be imported, from Pakistan in particular.
Saudi Arabia Fights the Islamic State at Home
A succint briefing from The Soufan Group and BLUF:
Quote:
The Saudi Arabian government announced that it has arrested 431 individuals, most over the last month, on charges associated with the Islamic State • Few countries are as sensitive to instability concerns as Saudi Arabia, and the country faces a serious domestic threat of Islamic State cells
• Following a steady procession of suicide bombings and shootings, Saudi Arabia is trying to disrupt the Islamic State’s momentum inside the country
• The number of Saudi nationals who have traveled to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq pales in relation to the potential recruiting pool of radicalized young Saudis who might prefer to fight at home.
Link:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...state-at-home/
I wonder if anyone in KSA has pointed out that in the Yemen the KSA is acting in apparent concert with AQAP?
Saudi Arabia’s “Terrorist” Allies in Yemen
From a short paper by the Washington DC based Wilson Center:
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The Yemeni civil war is making for strange bedfellows. Who would have predicted that Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda might become allies despite the terrorist group’s near success in assassinating the current Saudi crown prince six years ago? Who would have thought the Kingdom would turn to the Muslim Brotherhood for help even though the Saudis have condemned it as a terrorist group at home? But this is what is happening in Yemen as the struggle between factions, seen by rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran as proxies of each other, relentlessly grinds on with no end in sight. These Saudi alliances may be mainly tactical and of short duration, but they are straining Saudi relations with the United States, which regards al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as the most dangerous terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. They are also angering Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who looks upon the Brotherhood as an existential threat and the main source of the escalating terrorist insurgency he faces.
Link:http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publicat...-allies-yemen?