Saudi Arabia: seeking security (catch all)

[SWJ Blog]

Assessing Two Countering Violent Extremism Programs: Saudi Arabia’s PRAC and the United Kingdom’s Prevent Strategy

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[davidbfpo]

A Huffington Post article, the full title being 'A Saudi Psychologist on Jihadism, Clerical Elite and Education Reform':http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph...d&ir=WorldPost

This is a clue:

Clinical psychologist Abdullah al-Garni serves a niche clientele: recovering jihadists. He heads the mental health division at the Mohammed bin Naif Center for Counseling and Advice, a halfway house for members of Al-Qaeda and other groups who have served prison time in Saudi Arabia or at the U.S. Government-run Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The most interesting Q&A is:

Q: How did Islam come to be used as a justification for terrorism among Saudis?
A: It is a matter of how a group of so-called clerics interpret, or misinterpret, Islam. In Surat Al 'Imran of our Holy Book, it says, "No one knows [the Qur'an's] true interpretation except God, and those who are well-grounded in knowledge say, 'We believe in it. All of it is from our Lord.'" But some clerics stop in the middle of the verse, and just say, "No one knows [the Qur'an's] true interpretation except God and those who are well-grounded in knowledge." Then they put it to you that they alone are well-grounded in knowledge, and go on to use the half-sentence as a divine mandate for their own authority. If we claim that our religion is a peaceful religion, calling for peace between nations and between religions, then these false foundations need to be addressed.

[davidbfpo]

A staunch conservative preacher in Saudi Arabia has changed his views, to the alarm of the regime:

Mr. Awda had something akin to a conversion moment during the Arab uprisings of 2011, and since then has become a passionate promoter of democracy and civic tolerance.

....even published a book called “Questions of Revolution.” Promptly banned here but widely disseminated on the Internet, the book drew on Islamic texts and history to reach some very unorthodox conclusions: that democracy is the only legitimate form of government; that Islam does not permit theocracy; that separation of powers is required; that the worst despotism is that practiced in the name of religion.

He openly declares his admiration for the democratic inclinations of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is anathema to the Saudi royals.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/wo...=67232673&_r=0

[davidbfpo]

This week Richard Barrett, ex-diplomat (UK & UN posts) and now with the Soufan Group, commented that trained Saudi military personnel are defecting to ISIS. He drew attention to the oddity in a February 2014 statement by the King that fighting abroad meant a five year prison sentence for citizens and seven and half years for those who serve in the military.

His estimate, based on visits to Saudi Arabia, was that 2,500-3,000 have gone to fight; with three hundred in rehab centres (maybe intercepted before leaving or returned).

In my background reading this week I found suggestions that the Saudi army were deploying to the northern border (maybe easier to defect then?).

Copied to here from the current thread on Iraq.

[carl]

I wonder how this all will turn out. I don’t mean from a standpoint of what the takfiri killers will do, they will keep going until stopped or dead; but what we will do.

It occurs to me that most if not all of our trouble, the world’s trouble, with the takfiri killers comes from one basic thing, Saudi money. Without Saudi money wahabiism would be a vile footnote and most all of its manifestations and things it influences would have to stand financially on their own, which they couldn’t do well since they aren’t as good at building economies as they are at mayhem.

It also occurs to me that Saudi money ultimately depends upon the forbearance and goodwill of the West. If oil had become useful in the 18th Century instead of the 20th, there would not be a Saudi Arabia. Some Western country, or countries, would have just annexed the place. We allow them to keep their country and sell us the oil that they cannot extract without our help because of our sense of fair play, self determination for indigenous people and all that. They in turn use a large part of that money to finance those who would destroy us and have for decades. Noble intentions on our part don’t seem to be working out so well.

Given that things with the takfiri killers aren’t slowing down but speeding up, can we allow this to go on? We can run ourselves ragged chasing individuals with murder on their minds for many years to come or we can do something about depriving the Saudis of their money and perhaps cut things off at the source. We will be forced into that I think.

The question then becomes how to do it. Robert Baer wrote a book about this (I stole his ideas) years ago and suggested that oddly enough the above circumstances plus the fact that most of the Saudi oil fields are in east and in Shia areas makes Iran a natural long term ally.

What do you guys think of all this in whole or in parts? I don’t see things going on like this for many more decades without us having to do something relatively radical.

[Red Rat]

Hard to get a good feel as to what is happening in Saudi Arabia, but patently the fissures are showing more and more there as well. Low level disorder in the Shi'a Eastern Provinces and a growing Salafists terrorism problem from the Northern Provinces.

The latest statement from the King is a sign of the times:

"Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to protect the Kingdom against potential "terrorist threats," a Royal Court statement said Thursday"

King Orders High Alert To Fight Terror

[AmericanPride]

The Saudi royal family has always played this balancing game between itself and the fundamentalist establishment. This alliance goes back hundreds of years. This is why the Saudis maintain the National Guard (which rivals the Army in size) under direct command of the King and independent of the Defense Ministry. KSA is an inherently unstable state and I would not be surprised if there is concern about the reliability of the armed forces to maintain the royal family's security in the event of a major fundamentalist offensive.

The question then becomes how to do it. Robert Baer wrote a book about this (I stole his ideas) years ago and suggested that oddly enough the above circumstances plus the fact that most of the Saudi oil fields are in east and in Shia areas makes Iran a natural long term ally.

I think this is one of the few times you and I are not in disagreement. Let's break out the champagne. We're already in cahoots with fundamentalist regime in Saudi Arabia and historically there's been no hesitation in supporting fundamentalist movements, so Iran seems like a good as an ally as any. It's also a larger, more stable, and more populous country than KSA - not to mention it's form of fundamentalism is more tame than Wahhabism. At some point in the near future it will be important for the US to make amends with Iran and develop an effective relationship - the instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan make that a necessity.

[davidbfpo]

A rare report spotted:http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0FA04620140705

The KSA has a problem:

The kingdom .....said in May it had detained 62 suspected al Qaeda militants with links to radicals in Syria and Yemen who it said it believed were plotting attacks on government and foreign targets in the kingdom.

[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 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/

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.

[Bill Moore]

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

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.

[davidbfpo]

From this armchair KSA is simply not as united against ISIS as the regime thinks or we hope. Yes it has money, an authentic religious regime, a robust internal security apparatus and more. On the downside a number of Saudi military have gone to fight with ISIS (Post 33) and even with some doubts over accuracy (from Post 39):

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.

[SWJ Blog]

The Liberation of South Yemen Proves Saudi Arabia's Power is Growing

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Saudi Arabia: The Stunning Human-Rights Abuses of a U.S. Ally

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[SWJ Blog]

Why Saudi Arabia's Coalition Against Terror Might Not be All it Appears

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[SWJ Blog]

Analysts: Saudi Arabia's Clerics Inspire Islamic Extremism

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