organization:saudi government

Moon of Alabama à propos de la démission de Saad Hariri (en gros : grosse destabilisation du Liban, qui échouera et finira par renforcer intérêts russes et iraniens) :
▻http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/11/lebanon-hariris-resignation-the-opening-shot-of-the-saudi-war-on-hizb

The resignation of Hariri is intended to provoke a constitutional crisis in Lebanon and to prevent new parliament elections. The further Saudi plan is likely to evolve around these elements:

– The Trump administration will announce new sanctions against Hizbullah and against Lebanon in general.
– The Saudi government will slip some of its al-Qaeda/ISIS proxy fighters from Syria and Iraq into Lebanon (possibly via Turkey by sea). It will finance local Lebanese terror operations.
– There will be new assassination attempts, terror attacks and general rioting by Sunni extremist elements against Christians and Shia in Lebanon.
– The U.S. will try to press the Lebanese army into a war against Hizbullah.
– Israel will try to provoke and divert Hizbullah’s attention by new shenanigans at the Lebanese and Syrian border. It will NOT start a war.

The plan is unlikely to succeed:

– The Lebanese people as a whole have no interest in a new civil war.
– The Lebanese army will not get involved on any specific side but will try to keep everyone calm.
– Sanctions against Hizbullah will hit all of Lebanon, including Sunni interests.
– A new Sunni prime minister will be found and installed, replacing the resigned Saudi puppet.
– Russian and Iranian economic interests will find a new market in Lebanon. Russian companies will engage in Lebanese gas and oil extraction in the Mediterranean and replace U.S. involvement.

The miscalculated Saudi/U.S./Israeli plan against Hizbullah can be understood as a helpless tantrum after their defeat in Syria and Iraq.

Je vois qu’il y a déjà une traduction en français :
▻http://arretsurinfo.ch/liban-demission-dhariri-premiere-salve-de-la-guerre-saoudienne-contre-l

Hate Speech in Saudi Arabia

Under Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi government has promoted the kingdom as becoming a more open and tolerant country. Yet, as a new Human Rights Watch report “‘They Are Not Our Brothers’: Hate Speech by Saudi Officials” details, Saudi authorities continue to not only permit but propagate incitement to hatred and discrimination against other religions and Islamic traditions that do not adhere to its interpretation of Sunni Islam. This hate speech—which can be found in the country’s criminal justice system, the Ministry of Education’s religion curriculum, and in government clerics’ fatwas and statements—is instrumental in Saudi Arabia’s enforcement of a system of discrimination against its own Saudi #Shia citizens.

https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/HRW.jpg

#hate_speech #racisme #xénophobie #Arabie_Saoudite #rapport #discriminations #migrations #propagande

Saudi Arabia is reportedly revising its ambitious plans to change its economy
▻https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/saudi-arabia-is-reportedly-revising-its-ambitious-plans-to-change-its-economy.

https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2017/09/07/104695046-GettyImages-541957402.1910x1000.jpg

The news comes as discussions heat up around the anticipated transfer of power from the Kingdom’s King Salman to his son Prince Mohammed.

A research note released Thursday by analysis firm Eurasia Group suggested that the transfer could occur within the coming weeks to prevent the likelihood of dissent from other members of the ruling family.

“We think King Salman will proceed with promoting his son to his place in the next few weeks (if not imminently) to prevent MBS’s (Mohammed bin Salman) rivals from organizing to challenge the transition plan,” Ayham Kamel, practice head, Middle East & North Africa, at Eurasia Group noted.

But analysts have opined that the revisions indicate that infighting is already underway.

“Reports that the Saudi government is planning to dilute its reform plans may be the first sign that the power and influence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is starting to wane and that broader opposition to reform is building,” Jason Tuvey, Middle East economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a research note.

“There’s a clear risk that the reforms, which already fell short in a number of key areas, will be watered down even further.”

“This supports our long-held view that Vision 2030 will fall short of its lofty intentions,” Tuvey added.

#Arabie_saoudite

Inside the Saudi town that’s been under siege for three months by its own government | The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-siege-town-own-citizens-government-kingdom-military-gove

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/08/04/19/saudi-qatif.png

When Donald Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia on his first trip abroad as US President in May, officials in Riyadh made a spectacular effort to promote the idea of unity in the Muslim world, inviting more than 100 leaders of Muslim nations to attend the Arab Islamic American Summit with the new President.

Critics pointed out that the Saudi-led coalition contributing to the misery in Yemen put paid to that idea. Even closer to home, however, the Saudi government had just begun a war on a town in the country’s restive east – a battle that is still raging despite receiving very little media coverage both within the conservative Kingdom and outside it.

#arabie_saoudite #yémen

Saudi Arabia’s dependent fees leave Egyptian expats in dire straits

▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/07/saudi-arabia-fees-egypt-expats-economic-trouble.html

Egyptian workers along with other expatriates in Saudi Arabia expressed their concerns over the Saudi government’s recent decision to impose new fees on the dependents of foreign workers, in a move to boost state revenues that have been hit by the decline in oil prices. Feeling the pinch of the increased fees, many Egyptians are planning to send their families back home to avoid this extra financial burden that will swallow their salaries.

SUMMARY⎙ PRINT
Dependents of expat workers in Saudi Arabia will be charged a dependent fee starting in 2017, which is a further strain on the salaries of foreign workers and will likely result in large numbers of families going back home.
AUTHOR
Amira Sayed Ahmed
POSTED
July 16, 2017
The newly introduced levy, which went into effect July 1, came as part of Saudi Arabia’s fiscal balance program adopted in December. The program aims to strike a balance between revenues and expenditure by 2020.

The monthly fee will begin at 100 Saudi riyals ($26.65) per dependent in 2017. This amount is expected to increase gradually every year until 2020. It will double to 200 riyals in 2018. Then, it will increase up to 300 riyals and 400 riyals in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The passport department, meanwhile, announced that the fees are mandatory and need to be paid before residency permits can be renewed, and exit/re-entry visas issued.

According to official statements, the expat dependent fees will help the government yield total revenues of 1 billion Saudi riyals by the end of this year and 65 billion riyals by 2020.

Farsnews
▻http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960418000768

A leading Egyptian newspaper released a number of documents proving that Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his counterpart in Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan have long been supporting the ISIL and al-Qaeda terrorist groups’ global operations.

“A leaked document in Qatar’s embassy and a letter to Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on October 26, 2016, show Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed’s support for certain key al-Qaeda members in the Arabian Peninsula,” Arabic language al-Badil newspaper wrote.

(...) The Henry Jackson Society — a right-wing think tank — said that overseas funding primarily from the governments and private charities of Persian Gulf countries has a “clear and growing link” to the onslaught of violence the UK and other western states.

The group estimated that the Saudi government and charities spent an estimated $4 billion exporting Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism (also practiced by ISIL and other terrorist groups), worldwide in 2015, up from $2 billion in 2007. In 2015, there were 110 mosques in the UK practicing Salafism and Wahhabism compared to 68 in 2007. The money is primarily funneled through mosques and Islamic schools in Britain, according to the report.

Washington Post didn’t disclose that writer who penned positive piece about Trump’s Saudi trip is paid by Saudi government - Salon.com
▻http://www.salon.com/2017/05/27/wash-post-didnt-disclose-that-writer-who-penned-positive-piece-about-trumps-s

The Washington Post allowed contributor Ed Rogers to praise Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia without disclosing that he’s a lobbyist for the Saudi Royal Court. The Post has repeatedly allowed Rogers to promote his lobbying clients’ interests without disclosure.

Rogers is the chairman of the BGR Group, a leading Washington, D.C., lobbying group. BGR is part of a vast network of American lobbying and public relations firms that work for the Saudi government. The Post itself has reported on Rogers’ role in promoting Saudi interests. An April 2016 article stated that Rogers “did not immediately return a request for comment” about his lobbying work for the Saudi government and that “Rogers is a contributor to the Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog.”

Rogers and BGR signed an agreement letter with the Saudi Royal Court on August 24, 2015, to “provide public relations and media management services for The Center [for Studies and Media Affairs at The Saudi Royal Court], which includes both traditional and social media forums.” The contract is worth $500,000 per year.

Why are Syrian rebels stepping up efforts to isolate Iran?
▻http://al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/02/iran-syria-rebels-astana-meeting-alloush-saudi.html

At the end of the day, it should be said that any analysis of the rebels’ current strategy would be incomplete without considering the role of Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudis were absent at the Astana talks, Alloush, the head of the rebel delegation, was one of the main figures of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. Apparently following the abovementioned strategy, the committee first demanded a separate meeting with the Russians and then turned their focus to distancing Russia from Iran during the talks. At the same time, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Jan. 24 declared the willingness of the Saudi government to cooperate with the Trump administration against Iran. Thus, it seems that the Saudis and the rebels they support are ultimately trying to kill time until a possible US-Russia rapprochement changes the Syrian equation in their favor.

Read more: ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/02/iran-syria-rebels-astana-meeting-alloush-saudi.html#ixzz4XvEdzM1i

The kingdom’s murky relationship to terrorism
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/saudi-arabia-obama-al-qaeda-terrorism/502343

Much of Saudi support is done by non-state actors. Yet that does not absolve the Saudi government of responsibility. These non-state actors enjoy a range of relationships with the Saudi regime. Some receive or did receive official patronage. Others, particularly those tied to leading clerics in the kingdom, are embraced indirectly by the regime’s self-proclaimed role as defender of the faithful. [..]

In addition, the Saudi royal family itself occupies an unusual role. In one sense, the royal family—with its tens of thousands of princes—is not the government. However, the finances of the family and the government are interwoven, and if a prince supports a group it has an unofficial imprimatur of approval. King Salman himself, for example, helped raise money for the mujahideen in Afghanistan and the Balkans.

Many of these voices are responsible for indoctrination rather than direct violence. That is to say, they might propagate views on the satanic nature of Jews, the apostasy of Shiites, or the heretical nature of the Ahmadiyyas, [...]. Such support, in the United States, would often be considered distasteful but part of protected free speech. For terrorists, however, it can prove invaluable as it provides theological legitimacy for their actions, enabling them to attract recruits and funds.

#terrorisme #arabie_saoudite #Saoud #wahhabites #wahhabisme

Les 28 pages:
▻http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/declasspart4.pdf

Senate Passes Bill That Would Expose Saudi Arabia to Legal Jeopardy Over 9/11
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/us/politics/senate-passes-bill-that-would-expose-saudi-arabia-to-legal-jeopardy-over-9-

A bill that would let the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the terror plot passed the Senate unanimously on Tuesday, bringing Congress closer to a showdown with the White House, which has threatened to veto the legislation.

The Senate’s passage of the bill, which will now be taken up in the House, is another sign of escalating tensions in a relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers.

Obama administration officials have lobbied against the bill, and the Saudi government has warned that if the legislation passes, it might begin selling off up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they face a danger of being frozen by American courts. Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the warning to lawmakers and administration officials while in Washington in March.

Saudi officials were ’supporting’ 9/11 hijackers, commission member says
▻http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/911-commission-saudi-arabia-hijackers

The comments by John F Lehman, an investment banker in New York who was Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, signal the first serious public split among the 10 commissioners since they issued a 2004 final report that was largely read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11.

“There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.”

He was critical of a statement released late last month by the former chairman and vice-chairman of the commission, who urged the Obama administration to be cautious about releasing the full congressional report on the Saudis and 9/11 – “the 28 pages”, as they are widely known in Washington – because they contained “raw, unvetted” material that might smear innocent people.

The Anti-Shia Movement in Indonesia

▻http://www.understandingconflict.org/en/conflict/read/50/THE-ANTI-SHIA-MOVEMENT-IN-INDONESIA

(Jakarta, 27 April 2016) The convergence of a non-violent hardline campaign against Shi’ism with a new determination of pro-ISIS groups to wage war at home is increasing the possibility of violent attacks on Indonesia’s Shi’a minority.

The Anti-Shi’a Movement in Indonesia, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), examines the history of anti-Shi’a movement in Indonesia and the reasons for its newfound intensity. Three distinct groups are involved: Saudi-oriented Salafis who see Shi’ism as a deviant sect; a conservative fringe of the large Muslim social organisation Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) that is worried about competition from Shi’a schools, especially in East Java; and those influenced by ISIS propaganda that Shi’a are enemies who must be killed. The last is by far the smallest but several anti-Shi’a plots have already been foiled by police.

Le rapport au format PDF :
▻http://file.understandingconflict.org/file/2016/04/IPAC_Report_27.pdf

B. Saudi Arabia and the Salafis in the 1980s

At the same time that the Iranian revolution was causing concern in government circles, it was triggering a reaction in Saudi-supported Salafi circles. Chief among the Salafi-Influenced groups was Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (DDII), an organisation established in 1967 by Muhammad Natsir, the former leader of Masyumi. DDII’s link to Saudi was clear: it served as the Indonesian representative of Rabitah Alam Islami (World Muslim League), the Mecca-based organisation dedicated to strengthening Saudi Arabia’s cultural and religious influence in the Muslim world through the propagation of Wahhabism.39

DDII’s da’wah agenda was related as much to Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical interests as to the local context. In the 1960s and 1970s when the Saudi leadership was preoccupied with curtailing the in uence of Gamal Abdul Nasser’s “Arab Socialism”, DDII focused on combating Commu- nism in Indonesia, just as Soeharto was purging the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).40 Once Nasserism failed, the Iranian revolution threatened Saudi Arabia’s supremacy as the leader of the Islamic world. The Saudi government began to use various charity organisations to curtail Iranian influence by supporting anti-Shia campaigns, and DDII soon adopted this agenda. One scholar writes:

No doubt encouraged by their Saudi and Kuwaiti sponsors,[DDII] polemicized against Shi’ism as a fatal deviation from Islam and published an unending series of anti-Shi’a tracts and books. Their activities appeared to be focused increasingly on perceived threats: threats from within (Shi’a, Islamic liberalism) as well as threats from without: the Christian and Jewish threats to the world of Islam.41

In 1982, DDII’s monthly magazine, Media Dakwah, published what appears to be its first anti-Iran/anti-Shi’a article entitled “Iran Ready to Wage Ideological Invasion”. In explaining the threat of Khomeini’s Shi’ism to Muslim countries, the article argued that the imamah doctrine propagated by Khomeini entailed an expansionist ambition to “conquer the entire Islamic world [and] rule over the entire 900-million population of Muslims in the world”.42

The anti-Shi’a campaign during this period was characterised by intellectual challenges to Shi’a doctrines, often by distorting them in a way designed to incite fear and hatred among Sunnis. The focus on the imminent danger of revolution may have reflected Saudi support, but it was also a way that DDII could present itself as a “friend” of the government in the context of Soeharto’s wariness of Islamic movements. DDII was established as a non-political movement precisely to avoid the fate of its predecessor, the Masyumi party. The 1990s saw the campaign change into more direct political lobbying for a ban on Shi’ism.

Ben Laden: chronique d’une mort annoncée
▻http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/International/Ben-Laden-chronique-d-une-mort-annoncee-943987

Exclusive Interview: Seymour #Hersh Dishes on Saudi Oil Money Bribes and the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
▻http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-hersh-dishes-saudi-oil-money-bribes-and-killin

Brother of Hillary’s Campaign Chief John Podesta Gets $140K Per Month to Lobby for Saudis
▻http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/21/brother-hillarys-campaign-chief-john-podesta-gets-140k-per-month-lobby-sa

The Saudi government has contracted the communications and strategy firm of Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, paying the group $140,000 per month to work for Saudi interests in the U.S.

Pour info, un avis négatif sur les « 28 pages » : Obama in Saudi Arabia, Exporter of Oil and Bigotry
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/opinion/obama-in-saudi-arabia-exporter-of-oil-and-bigotry.html

Americans are abuzz about the “missing 28 pages” — unsupported leads suggesting that Saudi officials might have had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. But as far as I can tell, these tips, addressed in a still-secret section of a congressional report, were investigated and discredited; Philip Zelikow of the 9/11 Commission tells me the 28 pages are “misleading”; the commission found there was “no evidence” of the Saudi government or senior officials financing the plot.

Le compte Twitter de la Coalition syrienne était tenu en 2014 par un cabinet de communication américain payé par l’Arabie séoudite.

Saudi government has vast network of PR, lobby firms in U.S.
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/20/saudi-government-has-vast-network-of-pr-lobby-firms-in-u-s

In 2014, consultants at the PR firm Qorvis developed content for the Saudi Arabia embassy’s YouTube and Twitter pages, and ran the Twitter account for the Syrian Opposition Coalition.

Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?hp

Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A croire que je fais une fixette sur les Saoudiens, mais celle nouvelle est de taille !

#arabie_saoudite #11_septembre

Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.

#Arabie_saoudite #Etats-Unis

Workers suffer in Saudi Arabia as once-mighty Hariri firm falters | Jordan Times
▻http://www.jordantimes.com/news/business/workers-suffer-saudi-arabia-once-mighty-hariri-firm-falters

He’s had no salary for six months, he cannot pay his children’s school fees and his permit to reside in Saudi Arabia has expired.

But Robert still holds out hope that things might improve for him and thousands of other workers at Saudi Oger Ltd., the once-mighty construction giant led by Lebanon’s billionaire former prime minister Saad Hariri.

Delayed receipts from a Saudi government whose oil revenues collapsed over the past two years have left employees of the company struggling to survive while they wait to be paid, Robert and other sources say.

Other contractors are also affected, but sources say problems at the 38-year-old Saudi Oger go deeper than the kingdom’s current economic strains.

“Already when I worked at Saudi Oger there were delays in salary payments to local employees,” a former staffer indicated. “It seems the situation got worse.”

Saudi Oger employs around 50,000 people of various nationalities, from managers to labourers, and Robert noted that the salaries of nearly all have been delayed.

But at six months without a pay cheque, he is among the longest suffering.

“I don’t have money,” he said. “It’s hard.”

The veteran employee of Saudi Oger says he has “no choice” but to stay with the firm because he cannot find another job.

Robert, whose name has been changed because he asked for anonymity, said the company promised in a letter that salaries will flow at the end of March.

Poor management blamed 

“It’s a desperate situation,” a well-informed source said, describing expatriate families facing a similar plight to Robert’s.

“They can’t pay for the tickets” to even fly home, the source indicated, adding that many senior officers of Saudi Oger support families in Lebanon, meaning remittances to that country will be affected.

[...]
France’s embassy, concerned for the many French employees at the company, sent two letters to the firm, which responded with its promise to start paying the salaries.

[...]
He added that the plight of the Hariri family company raises two questions: “Will Saudi local banks continue to finance Saudi Oger, and secondly, will the Hariri clan manage to enlist an investor willing to provide new investment?”

“If Hariri can prove he is still useful, the Saudis may help him,” a Lebanese banker said. “But if not, they won’t.”

- See more at: ▻http://www.jordantimes.com/news/business/workers-suffer-saudi-arabia-once-mighty-hariri-firm-falters#sthash.jfrX

Murtaza Hussain sur Twitter : « Saudi government tweeting in Hebrew [ sur l’absence de liberté d’expression en Iran... ]. Never thought I’d see this : ▻https://twitter.com/Infographic_ksa/status/702524231326765056 »
▻https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/702582326707023873

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb_eEJtW4AAslAU.png

One Map That Explains the Dangerous Saudi-Iranian Conflict
▻https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/one-map-that-explains-the-dangerous-saudi-iranian-conflict

In fact, much of the conflict can be explained by a fascinating map created by M.R. Izady, a cartographer and adjunct master professor at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University in Florida.

https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/01/Shia-and-Oil-lg.jpg

Map shows religious populations in the Middle East and proven developed oil and gas reserves. Click to view the full map of the wider region. The dark green areas are predominantly Shiite; light green predominantly Sunni; and purple predominantly Wahhabi/Salafi, a branch of Sunnis. The black and red areas represent oil and gas deposits, respectively. Source: Dr. Michael Izady at Columbia University, Gulf2000, New York

What the map shows is that, due to a peculiar correlation of religious history and anaerobic decomposition of plankton, almost all the Persian Gulf’s fossil fuels are located underneath Shiites. This is true even in Sunni Saudi Arabia, where the major oil fields are in the Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population.

As a result, one of the Saudi royal family’s deepest fears is that one day Saudi Shiites will secede, with their oil, and ally with Shiite Iran.

This fear has only grown since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq overturned Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime, and empowered the pro-Iranian Shiite majority. Nimr himself said in 2009 that Saudi Shiites would call for secession if the Saudi government didn’t improve its treatment of them.

Letter From Saudi Arabia - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/opinion/letter-from-saudi-arabia.html?action=click

As for ISIS, Mohammed disputed that it is a product of Saudi religious thinking, arguing that it was in fact a counterreaction to the brutalization of Iraqi Sunnis by the Iranian-directed Shiite-led government in Baghdad of Nouri al-Maliki and to the crushing of Syrian Sunnis by the Iranian-backed government in Damascus. “There was no [ISIS] before America departed from Iraq. And then America leaves and Iran enters, and then ISIS appears,” he said.

He complained that at a time when ISIS is blowing up mosques in Saudi Arabia in an effort to destabilize the regime, the world is accusing Saudi Arabia of inspiring ISIS: “The [ISIS] terrorists are telling me that I am not a Muslim. And the world is telling me I am a terrorist.”

This is the legacy, though, of decades of one part of the Saudi government and society promoting Salafist Islam and the other part working with the West to curb jihadists. As I said, the world has been frustrated with that dichotomy.

Mohammed argued that the ISIS narrative is beamed directly to Saudi youth via Twitter, and that the message is: “The West is trying to enforce its agenda on you — and the Saudi government is helping them — and Iran is trying to colonize the Arab world. So we — ISIS — are defending Islam.”

He added: “We don’t blame the West for misreading us. It is partly our fault. We don’t explain our situation. The world is changing rapidly, and we need to reprioritize to be with the world. Today the world is different. You cannot be isolated from the world. The world must know what is going on in your neighborhood, and we must know what is going on in the world — [it’s] a global village.”

Tout est insupportable dans les « analyses » de Thomas Friedman, une sorte de croisement obscène entre Gilles Kepel et Alexandre Adler ! Ici, il fait la pub (on espère bien payée) pour le régent saoudien (qu’il appelle Mohammed, j’aurais mieux aimé « Momo »), jeune et prometteur tueur de Yéménites. Il s’agit à l’évidence d’un contre-feu à l’odieuse campagne de #wahhabite_bashing !

#arabie_saoudite #friedman

Syrian opposition ’congress’ excluding figures consenting to Assad survival
▻http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2015/11/24/syrian-opposition-congress-excluding-figures-consenting-to-assad-survival

The conference would not only put together a delegation to take part in the Vienna talks, he said, but would also propose a unified vision for Syria’s transition and future.

Several political, religious and military figures will be invited to the conference alongside the two main opposition bodies, the SNC and the National Coordination Committee [NCC].

However, it appears that Saudi Arabia will exclude any figure that accepts Bashar al-Assad to remain in power during the transitional period of afterwards, a Saudi government source told SNC figures who spoke to al-Araby al-Jadeed.

WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists (article de décembre 2010)
►http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-saudi-terrorist-funding

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton.

“More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,” says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” she said.

Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The cables highlight an often ignored factor in the Pakistani and Afghan conflicts: that the violence is partly bankrolled by rich, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them.