Saudi Arabia hosted a two-day conference in Jeddah last week, which was attended by the president of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where members convened to discuss measures to thwart religiously-motivated violence and discrimination.
Contents: Saudi Arabia shoots down Scud missile from Houthis in Yemen; Who’s causing the humanitarian crisis in Yemen?; Europeans rescue 3,000 migrants on Saturday, fear hundreds of thousands more
Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Yemen are benefiting from the global focus on the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), quietly capturing territory and expanding their influence amid the turmoil in the war-ravaged countries, reports The Washington Post.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The growing Iranian influence in the Middle East has brought two historic enemies together, Israel and Saudi Arabia, officials from both countries revealed during a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) event.
A male supervisor on a university bus forced a woman to step out because she took off her veil, despite the fact that only other women were seated with her on the bus. The bus was transporting home the female students from the Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University for Women.
President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a failure, but he is responsible for at least one accidental success: bringing Israel and Saudi Arabia, once implacable foes, together in opposition to his agenda. On Thursday, Israel’s Dore Gold, the incoming director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appeared in Washington, DC at the Council on Foreign Relations alongisde Anwar Majed Eshki, a former adviser to the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., and revealed secret Israeli-Saudi talks on Iran.
(Reuters) Saudi-led air strikes killed a group of around 20 Houthi fighters outside the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Wednesday and also shook the capital Sanaa in the north, militiamen opposed to the Houthis said.
South Korean officials announced on Wednesday that they can confirm the existence of five new cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, commonly called MERS.
According to the Yemeni government-in-exile, United States diplomats are in discussions with Yemen’s Houthis, a Shiite rebel group which seized control of the Gulf country earlier this year.
Saudi Arabia plans on turning the birthplace of Wahhabism–just outside the capital city of Riyadh–into a tourist destination filled with entertainment, historic exhibits, parks, and restaurants.
The Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission (SACM) held its annual celebration and job fair last month just outside Washington, D.C. The four-day event begun on May 22 was “designed to reward the graduates on the King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP) with the chance to both celebrate their success with their colleagues as well as search for jobs and meet top executives from leading companies and universities in Saudi Arabia.”
The Houthis, Iran-backed rebels who overthrew the government of Yemen, have released one of four Americans held captive, according to CNN, relaying a report from Oman’s official news agency.
The Associated Press reports thousands of Shiites filled the streets in Saudi Arabia on Saturday to mourn the latest fatality from a pair of ISIS bomb attacks against Shiite mosques in the Kingdom.
The Associated Press cites a release from the official Saudi Press Agency to report a second suicide bomb attack against a Shiite mosque in the Kingdom. At least four people were killed in the Friday attack.
NATIONAL JOURNAL: If this were Iraq or Syria, these attacks—sadly—wouldn’t be surprising. But it’s not. It’s Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s most precious sites and the region’s most powerful Sunni rulers—a relatively vast territory, kept remarkably stable by the ruthless application of authoritarian rule while its neighbors teeter under the destabilizing weight of popular revolution and terrorist intervention.
Contents: ISIS suicide bombers strike Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia and Baghdad; ISIS continues to gain supporters throughout the Mideast
“Saudi-led airstrikes killed at least 80 people near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia and in the capital Sanaa Wednesday, residents said, the deadliest day of bombing in over two months of war in Yemen,” writes Reuters.
Christof Heyns, the United Nations Special Raporteur of Extrajudicial Summary and Arbitrary Executions, recently spoke out against the rise in executions in Saudi Arabia. “It is certainly very disturbing that there is such a fast pace of executions at the moment,” Heyns told AFP. “If it continues at this pace we will have double the number of executions, or more than double the number of executions, that we had last year.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that the nation had already begun sending “humanitarian aid” relief packages to refugees fleeing the war-torn nation of Yemen, and that it was preparing to continue sending food and medicine to the region. It marks the first Turkish presence in a war in which Iran and Saudi Arabia are both backing opposite sides of a civil war.
Contents: ISIS stokes sectarian Sunni-Shia clashes across the Mideast and Asia; Iraq’s government changes name of military operation to recapture Ramadi; Sunni Arabs are being forced to choose between ISIS and Shias
Reuters reports that Sunni militia units have driven Iran-backed Shiite Houthi insurgents from the southern Yemeni city of Dalea, dealing the Houthis their “first significant setback” in two months of hot civil war.
CNN reports that Houthi insurgents in Yemen claim to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet near the capital city of Sanaa. The Saudis have refused to comment on the report, while the Yemeni government has flatly denied it.
After a year in which the oil price plummeted and the industry adjusted to a period of global oversupply, an analyst has claimed that the world is running short of oil.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has set up camps in Djibouti, located in the Horn of Africa, to care for the thousands of Yemenis fleeing the civil war. The agency needs more help, but now Iranian state media claim Djibouti turned away humanitarian aid.
ISIS jihadis are complaining in online forums that the best suicide missions in Iraq and Syria are being handed to those with the right “connections” through their Saudi Arabian friends and families. The Express reports that preacher Kamil Abu Sultan
Contents: ISIS claims responsibility for major terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia; As ISIS grows, Saudis face conflict between stability and reforms
The endless sectarian bloodshed between militant Islamists continues, with a deadly suicide bomb attack on a Shia mosque in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia that killed over a dozen people. According to the BBC, the Sunni fanatics of the Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the attack, with a Twitter message that included an image of the bomber.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif gave a genial interview to Der Spiegel this week, with the German magazine describing him as “relaxed and cheerful” throughout. In his relaxed and cheerful way, Zarif continued Iran’s practice of making the Obama administration look foolish, rewriting the so-called “nuclear deal” on the fly and scoffing at the administration’s talking points.
Contents: Iranian, American, Saudi military head for confrontation off Yemen; In repeat of Mosul disaster, Iraqi army abandoned US weapons in Ramadi; Report: Saudi Arabia seeking nuclear weapons from Pakistan
A showdown at sea between the U.S. and Iran is brewing off the coast of Yemen.
Fighter jets belonging to a Saudi-led coalition launched strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen on Tuesday, just one day after a five-day truce between the two parties expired.
Saudi Arabia has advertised for eight executioners to deal with a soaring number of capital punishment charges. The advert, which appeared on a civil service jobs portal yesterday, listed the job as “executing a judgment of death”. The successful applicants
On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Civil Service listed on its website eight new job openings for the position of executioner. The job responsibilities will likely include beheadings and amputations–two of the most prominent punishments for violations, including drug smuggling, arms dealing, murder, and rape.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels and their allies were reportedly targeted by Saudi-led airstrikes after a five-day humanitarian cease-fire expired on Sunday night.
After becoming increasingly fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran, reports have stated that Saudi Arabia intends on purchasing nuclear weapons from Pakistan, following a week where some of the Kingdom’s high-ranking officials attended a Gulf summit organized by U.S. President Barack Obama.
In an interview with Voice of America News’ Cal Perry, former deputy CIA director Michael Morell gave a rare “intelligence guy” opinion on President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism policy and said we need to “be all in with Saudi Arabia.” He
A court denied parole to Saudi national Homaidan al-Turki, 45, after he refused to attend a sex offender course. He is currently serving an eight years-to-life sentence after a court convicted him of keeping his maid as a sex slave.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Charging toward an Iran nuclear agreement, President Barack Obama is assuring Arab allies that they are safe from the threat of an empowered Tehran as he seeks to shore up some of America’s most critical security partnerships.
Iran attempts to seize Singapore-flagged ship in Persian Gulf; Obama concludes bizarre meeting with GCC at Camp David; The Truman Doctrine and the Carter Doctrine
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The five-day cease-fire in Yemen, which appeared to be holding up despite some violations, has facilitated the delivery of some humanitarian assistance for the residents of the war-ravaged nation, a U.S. State Department spokesman said on Thursday.
