In a surprise, Senegal joins a beleaguered Saudi coalition in Yemen; Pakistan and Saudi Arabia appear to reconcile over Yemen; ‘Saudi troops’ landing in Aden were really Yemeni troops
Hurriyet Daily News has an odd little story from the Uskudar district of Istanbul, where the mayor has constructed a miniature replica of Mecca, Islam’s holy city. It is essentially a theme park of Mohammed’s life and times, with replicas of “the Kaaba, Prophet Mohammad’s house, the Hira cave, the Sevr cave, the Muallaq Stone, the Zamzam well and an elephant statue.”
(Reuters) – In making a blaze of largesse and the dismissal of relatively liberal clerics two of his first acts as monarch, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has signaled his approach to big future challenges may differ from that of his liberalizing late brother.
The continuing flare-ups on Saudi Arabia’s northern border with Iraq has led some to believe that the Islamic State is set on an eventual push towards the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Saudi Arabia officials arrested the man who filmed the brutal video of a woman beheaded in public in Mecca. The swordsman murdered Myanmur woman Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim as she screamed her innocence.
Saudi Arabian authorities publicly beheaded a woman in the holy city of Mecca after a court convicted her of sexually abusing and murdering her stepdaughter. The kingdom has executed nine people only two weeks into the new year.
