Saudi Media publish photos of Erdogan with Hikmatyar from 1985; Is Turkey going to be punished for standing with Qatar?

Saudi Media publish photos of Erdogan with Hikmatyar from 1985; Is Turkey going to be punished for standing with Qatar?

    Sunday, June 11, 2017   No comments

Saudi media released pictures, from 1985, showing now Turkish president, Erdogan, sitting before Afghani leading figure of the U.S.-sponsored rebels who fought against the USSR supported government in Afghanistan, Gulbiddin Hikmatyar. Alarabiya-English accompanied the image with a comment, suggesting that the image shows the link between Islamists and wars.

The photos and reports by Saudi media came just days after Turkish lawmakers and the president authorized the deployment of troops to Qatar. Source

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia continued its campaign against Qatar. Alarabiya continued to broadcast reports about Qatari rulers and their connections to terrorist organizations.

 A sample of such reports is shown below:

   

   

Syrian and Iraqi forces reach the Syrian Iraqi Border, near al Tanf for the first time

Syrian and Iraqi forces reach the Syrian Iraqi Border, near al Tanf for the first time

    Friday, June 09, 2017   No comments

ISR comment:  The U.S. forces attacked Syrian government forces and its allies three times to prevent them from reaching the Iraqi border and clearing the highway that links Baghdad to Damascus. On Friday, the Russian defense ministering claimed that the Syrian army reached the border. This is an important development since US officials say that it is protecting  "moderate" rebels who are fighting ISIS. Now that these rebels have no open front with ISIS, it will be interesting to see what other justification for their continued operation in the region.

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Control map in Syria and Iraq on June 8, 2017

Control map in Syria and Iraq on June 9, 2017

 According to media reports, Russian Ministry of Defense claim pro-Assad forces reached the border of Iraq. The Ministry claims that the air forces of the US-led coalition are working to undermine the anti-terrorist efforts of the Syrian government, Colonel General Sergey Surovikin of the Russian ground forces has said.

“Despite promoting the aim of fighting international terrorism, the coalition is striking the Syrian military, allowing IS militants to leave encircled areas unhindered, thus strengthening the terrorist groupings near Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor,” Surovikin said.

“The coalition air forces and the strongholds of the forces of New Syrian Army [now known as the Revolutionary Commando Army] have blocked the way of the government forces, tasked with defeating IS [Islamic State] groups,” he said at a briefing on Friday.“This is a violation of the sovereign right of Syria to protect it borders,” he said.

The statement comes after US warplanes stuck pro-government forces near At Tanf on Thursday, the third such incident in the space of several weeks. source

Saudi minister says no evidence that Saudis behind Iran attack

Saudi minister says no evidence that Saudis behind Iran attack

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

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Speaking in Berlin, Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said he condemned terrorist attacks wherever they occur, but said there was no evidence that Saudis were behind the attack in Tehran, adding he did not know who was responsible.

Jubeir also said there was no specific trigger for a decision to cut ties with Qatar, but said there was a long list of grievances.

Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2017/06/07/saudi-minister-says-no-evidence-that-saudis-behind-iran-attack/#iQ5yFO9H7FI4TZXf.99

  

Turkish parliament approves bill to deploy troops in Qatar

Turkish parliament approves bill to deploy troops in Qatar

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

Turkey's parliament on June 7 approved a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar.

The move appears to support the Gulf Arab country as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar and closed their airspace to commercial flights on Monday, charging it with financing militant groups.

Qatar vehemently denies the accusations. It is the worst split between powerful Arab states in decades.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized the Arab states' move, saying isolating Qatar and imposing sanctions will not resolve any problems and adding that Ankara will do everything in its power to help end the crisis. source

At least 12 killed in terrorist attack in Tehran, ISIL claims responsibility

At least 12 killed in terrorist attack in Tehran, ISIL claims responsibility

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Iran's parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials and media said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building and one body, apparently dead, on the floor. Source.

The terrorist attack, which was claimed by ISIL, came weeks after one of the Saudi rulers, Mohammed Bin Salman, threatened to take the battle inside Iran: "We will not wait until the battle is in Saudi Arabia but we will work so the battle is there in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia." See video:

Dissent is haram in Gulf Nations: Sympathizing with Qatar will cost people living in UAE up to 15 years in prison

Dissent is haram in Gulf Nations: Sympathizing with Qatar will cost people living in UAE up to 15 years in prison

    Wednesday, June 07, 2017   No comments

The United Arab Emirates tightened the squeeze on fellow Gulf state Qatar on Wednesday, threatening anyone publishing expressions of sympathy towards Doha with up to 15 years in prison and barring entry to Qataris.
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The UAE-based newspaper Gulf News and pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya reported the crackdown on expressions of sympathy with Qatar.

"Strict and firm action will be taken against anyone who shows sympathy or any form of bias towards Qatar, or against anyone who objects to the position of the United Arab Emirates, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form," Gulf News quoted UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi as saying.

On top of a possible jail term, offenders could also be hit with a fine of at least 500,000 dirhams ($136,000), the newspaper said, citing a statement to Arabic-language media.

Slogans against and in support of Qatar have dominated Twitter in Arabic. Newspapers and television channels in the region have also been engaged in a war of words.

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar-idUSKBN18Y0DH

A simple question about Saudi Arabia and Democracy causes brain-freeze of Senior State Department official

A simple question about Saudi Arabia and Democracy causes brain-freeze of Senior State Department official

    Wednesday, May 31, 2017   No comments

Acting Assistant Secretary of State Stuart Jones, who accompanied President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Saudi Arabia last week, was holding a press briefing about the trip’s achievements. Then he was asked a simple question:

While you were over there, the secretary criticized the conduct of the Iranian elections and Iran’s record on democracy. He did so standing next to Saudi officials. How do you characterize Saudi Arabia’s commitment to democracy? And does the administration believe that democracy is a buffer or barrier against extremism?

Jones paused for 20 long seconds to collect his thoughts, then he answered:

I think what we would say is, that at this meeting, we were able to make significant progress with Saudi and GCC [Persian Gulf Cooperation Council] partners in both making a strong statement against extremism and also putting in place certain measures through this GCC mechanism where we can combat extremism. Clearly one source of extremism – one terrorism threat – is coming from Iran. And that’s coming from a part of the Iranian apparatus that is not at all responsive to its electorate.

The moment spells out the difficulty US officials face when they try to explain their alliances with regimes that have no respect for representative governance--such as the Saudi regime.

Watch the clip:

Trump's first trips abroad leave a trail of destruction among US allies: Qatar and Saudi Arabia crisis may cause GCC breakup

Trump's first trips abroad leave a trail of destruction among US allies: Qatar and Saudi Arabia crisis may cause GCC breakup

    Tuesday, May 30, 2017   No comments

Trump's first trips abroad leave a trail of destructions among US allies. The Gulf States are on the verge of collapse and the German leader is declaring that Europeans can no longer rely on the US. The rising tension between members of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) is unprecedented however. 

For days, media outlets connected to UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain have launched attacks against Qatar. Now it seems that Qatar has decided to dig in.
 
A cartoon recently posted on the Doha-based Al Jazeera’s Twitter feed set off a storm of condemnation by Saudi Twitter users, claiming one of the figures in the ‘insulting’ cartoon looked like the Saudi King Salman.

The cartoon was eventually removed by the network in an attempt to ease the tension between the two neighboring Arab states.

Relations between Qatar and the other GCC states were already fraught after the Qatar News Agency last week reported that the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani had criticized the aggressive rhetoric aimed at Iran during the Riyadh Meetings on May 20-22.

Qatar’s government later declared that the news agency had been hacked, and the remarks attributed to the emir were false. However, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt blocked all Qatari media in reaction to the emir’s remarks.

The Qatari emir, however, did not try to ease the tension, and called Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to congratulate him on his re-election. Sheikh Tamim also noted that there is no barrier to the expansion of Tehran-Doha relations.

Qatar is now launching it own media blitz accusing Saudi Arabia and UAE of hypocrisy and  weakness:

   

 

Saudi Arabia and terrorism: more than 94 percent of deaths caused by Islamic terrorism since 2001 were perpetrated by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other Sunni (Wahhabi] jihadists

Saudi Arabia and terrorism: more than 94 percent of deaths caused by Islamic terrorism since 2001 were perpetrated by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other Sunni (Wahhabi] jihadists

    Friday, May 26, 2017   No comments

The Islamic State draws its beliefs from Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi version of Islam. As the former imam of the kingdom’s Grand Mosque said last year, the Islamic State “exploited our own principles, that can be found in our books. . . . We follow the same thought but apply it in a refined way.” Until the Islamic State could write its own textbooks for its schools, it adopted the Saudi curriculum as its own.

Saudi money is now transforming European Islam. Leaked German intelligence reports show that charities “closely connected with government offices” of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait are funding mosques, schools and imams to disseminate a fundamentalist, intolerant version of Islam throughout Germany.

source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/saudi-arabia-just-played-donald-trump/2017/05/25/d0932702-4184-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.82b970e26b22

 

Trump summoned authoritarian Arab and Muslim rulers for 3 summits in Riyadh

Trump's Sword dancing and saber rattling in Saudi Arabia, homeland of nearly all of the 9/11 attackers

Trump's Sword dancing and saber rattling in Saudi Arabia, homeland of nearly all of the 9/11 attackers

    Monday, May 22, 2017   No comments

The contrast couldn't be greater: In Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump joined in the sword dance - a dance of war, as King Salman explained to his American guest. And in Iran, the people were dancing in the streets to celebrate the landslide victory of moderate reformer Hassan Rouhani in the presidential election, and the rejection of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.

Despite, or maybe even because of the war dance, the mood in Saudi Arabia is also one of joy and celebration. Trump's speech on Sunday has been seen as turning the page on US relations with the Arab world generally, and Saudi Arabia in particular. It didn't just mark the end of the Obama administration's critical stance on the kingdom, it also declared its geostrategic adversary, Iran, to be the biggest villain in the region - one best left in isolation, as it was during the George W. Bush era. And because isolation alone might not have been enough, Trump arrived bearing arms contracts worth some $110 billion (98 billion euros) for his hosts - a deal of historic proportions.

No vision of peace

It's a bitter irony that, while visiting the homeland of nearly all of the 9/11 attackers, Trump singled out Iran alone for supporting terrorism. He made no mention of the fact that Riyadh has been supporting the so-called "Islamic State" and other jihadist groups with money and arms, as former US Vice President Joe Biden made clear in a speech he gave at Harvard University in the fall of 2014.
... source

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WaPo