Saudi Arabia: seeking security (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Two very different viewpoints on Saudi Arabia today, after the death of the King (in de facto power since 1995). One from The Soufan Group:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...ath-of-a-king/ and the second from The Guardian:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-saudi-arabia?

[davidbfpo]

From Newsweek:

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/

[davidbfpo]

A rather breathless CNN reporter is on the Saudi-Yemen border with the Saudi border police. He gives some stats, 42k illegal perons detained in six months, including children smuggling Qat across - leaving unexplained who for - and in three months 500k tonnes of Qat seized.
Link:http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/201...men-border.cnn

[davidbfpo]

A short round up by WINEP, which includes this - which I'd not seen before about the Iraqi-Saudi cross-border raid by ISIS In January:

...one of the four Saudi militants who attacked the kingdom's border from Iraq in January had been previously arrested for al-Qaeda ties. He was eventually released on bail, according to Saudi authorities.

Link:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...orm-new-threat

[davidbfpo]

A WaPo journalist visits a Saudi jail for terrorists undergoing rehab:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...wpmk=MK0000203

How effective is this?

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:

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!

[davidbfpo]

An overview of KSA after the Yemeni operation, by a British SME, Alastair Crooke:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alasta...b_7163776.html

[davidbfpo]

Not my title, but that in The Daily Telegraph and a short piece by:

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.