Saudi Arabia: seeking security (catch all)

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems the KSA has an interesting way to get Saudi foreign fighters back home from Syria.

Dozens of Saudis fighting in Syria have voluntarily surrendered to security authorities, said Sami Al-Saleh, Saudi ambassador to Jordan.
The statement comes in the wake of the recent surrender of 28-year-old Khalaf Al-Enezi, who approached the Saudi Embassy in Amman after fighting in Syria for over 18 months.
“Al-Enezi is not the first nor the last person to surrender at the Jordanian border,” said Saleh. “He is one of dozens of Saudi young men who were misled.”
The Interior Ministry previously said that the Royal Court had approved a 15-day grace period for former fighters to come forward and return to the Kingdom.
“Many young Saudis benefited from the grace period granted by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in March,” he said. “Since that time, we have had individual cases of surrender."

[davidbfpo]

Within a broad article by Peter Oborne, a British journalist writing in a US outlet, was this snippet, with my emphasis in bold:

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.

[AmericanPride]

David,

It's an open secret that Wahhabism as defined by the Saudis is the state ideology of the kingdom. The clerical establishment is given great leeway and deference, as well as practical control over many of the government's ministries, including education. What is the difference between the extremists in the Saudi government and the extremists picking up arms in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere? And we should also question exactly what information the Saudi population receives about ISIS anyways - what's being said in the mosques and the schools? Given the widespread discontent in KSA, it would not surprise me at all that Saudi supportive opinion of ISIS is well north of 50%.

[davidbfpo]

From Twitter referring to a Saudi MInistry of Information press release:

MoI gives more detail of IS infiltration attempt. 2 killed when confronted by BG patrol 1 used SVEST during attempt to convince to surrender.
Two more killed after being surrounded inside Saudi Territory with one using SVEST. They carried grenades, assault riffles, and SVEST's cash

I understand ISIS hates the KSA regime, but why try this?

(Added) A little more in the NYT, minus anything to say it was ISIS:www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/world/middleeast/saudis-report-deadly-border-clash-with-infiltrators-from-iraq.html?

[davidbfpo]

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:

...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.

[davidbfpo]

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

[davidbfpo]

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:

...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/