Saudi Arabia just sponsored an ad in a big german newspapaer (FAZ) to defend its politics. 
Changes in Arabia
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Is nothing sacred on this forum anymore? You have to give us a link/image...something dammit!Saudi Arabia just sponsored an ad in a big german newspapaer (FAZ) to defend its politics.
It is only in print and i cant find an english article about it. It is just a huge wall of text explaining that they are the good guys who fight terrorists (and not sponsor them). Whoever wrote it was certainly not fluent in german, which is quite funny. http://m.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/a-1067317.html
Looks like the new mercenaries are also suffering in Yemen.
British mercenary killed in Yemen
A former British army officer and an Australian are thought to be among eight foreign mercenaries killed in Yemen this week fighting Iranian-backed rebels.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4637209.ece
British mercenary killed in Yemen
A former British army officer and an Australian are thought to be among eight foreign mercenaries killed in Yemen this week fighting Iranian-backed rebels.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4637209.ece
Might be window dressing but women were allowed to vote and contest municipal elections in Saudi arabia...
1 female winner so far.
1 female winner so far.
Yay for those bastions of liberalism the Saudis.
Are there any true Saudis on the caf? Not south Asians or north Africans who were born there, but real big arsed Saudis?
There was one from years back who I remember had a meltdown after Iraq beat Saudi in the Asian cup final.
I'm going to find that meltdown.
Six Gulf states will start taxing people for the first time
The Gulf Cooperation Council has agreed to introduce VAT following costly military campaigns and a drop in global oil prices
Six Gulf states have said they will tax their citizens for the first time in a radical policy shift.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - a loose fedration of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - has agreed to introduce VAT following costly military campaigns and a drop in global oil prices.
Saudi Arabia has withdrawn tens of billions of dollars from global investment funds in an attempt to reduce its budget deficit, The Times reports.
Despite this, it has pursued an aggressive foreign policy, supporting anti-government troops in Syria and spearheading an eight-month military campaign against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.
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May be if you actually spent some money on your own citizens and your own country instead of spending it all on funding terrorism and buying weapons you wouldn't be so deep in sh*t with all that oil you got.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the head of the Saudi special forces in Yemen and a top UAE commander (among others) were killed in Yemen as a result of a missile launched by Ansarallah. It's still not confirmed from both sides how big the total toll of casualties due to the attack, but it looks like it's something really big, because Saudi Arabia and the UAE first kept silent, and only hours after Ansarallah announced the death of of both commanders (by their names) among dozens others that they announced it, and at first claimed that it was "during direct military confrontation" to give the impression that they were just picked out "by snipers". But hours later they admitted it was a missile that landed in their base (very accurately apparently). A similar incident also happened a couple of months ago which killed dozens of Saudi, Emirati, Qatari soldiers and other mercenaries.
The Saudi commander (Colonel Abdullah Al-Sahyan) was just awarded a "medal of courage" by Hadi on Saturday.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35091675
The Gulf Cooperation Council has agreed to introduce VAT following costly military campaigns and a drop in global oil prices
Six Gulf states have said they will tax their citizens for the first time in a radical policy shift.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - a loose fedration of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - has agreed to introduce VAT following costly military campaigns and a drop in global oil prices.
Saudi Arabia has withdrawn tens of billions of dollars from global investment funds in an attempt to reduce its budget deficit, The Times reports.
Despite this, it has pursued an aggressive foreign policy, supporting anti-government troops in Syria and spearheading an eight-month military campaign against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.
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May be if you actually spent some money on your own citizens and your own country instead of spending it all on funding terrorism and buying weapons you wouldn't be so deep in sh*t with all that oil you got.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the head of the Saudi special forces in Yemen and a top UAE commander (among others) were killed in Yemen as a result of a missile launched by Ansarallah. It's still not confirmed from both sides how big the total toll of casualties due to the attack, but it looks like it's something really big, because Saudi Arabia and the UAE first kept silent, and only hours after Ansarallah announced the death of of both commanders (by their names) among dozens others that they announced it, and at first claimed that it was "during direct military confrontation" to give the impression that they were just picked out "by snipers". But hours later they admitted it was a missile that landed in their base (very accurately apparently). A similar incident also happened a couple of months ago which killed dozens of Saudi, Emirati, Qatari soldiers and other mercenaries.
The Saudi commander (Colonel Abdullah Al-Sahyan) was just awarded a "medal of courage" by Hadi on Saturday.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35091675
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Saudi Arabia have announced a 34 state Islamic alliance specifically to combat terrorism. Haven't included Iran in the alliance.
Bit more info here: http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/850596
Bit more info here: http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/850596
Do they need 33 other nations to help them suss out the Wahabist terrorist donors they have living openly and glamarously within Saudi Arabia?
No but it makes for a nice sounding headline. We're not supposed to read the small print.
I don't know where to begin, so may be we can begin with their definition to terrorism?
Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists in new law to crack down on political dissidents
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Article one of the new provisions defines terrorism as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based".
...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ack-down-on-political-dissidents-9228389.html
May be I don't even need to go on.
I don't know where to begin, so may be we can begin with their definition to terrorism?
Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists in new law to crack down on political dissidents
...
Article one of the new provisions defines terrorism as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based".
...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ack-down-on-political-dissidents-9228389.html
May be I don't even need to go on.
I never thought I would be able to say I'm friends with a Saudi terrorist.
Millionaire businessman cleared of raping teenager after he told court he may have accidentally penetrated her
Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, has been cleared of forcing himself on an 18-year-old girl as she slept off a night of drinking on his sofa
A Saudi millionaire has been cleared of raping a teenager after claiming he might have accidentally penetrated the 18-year-old when he tripped and fell on her.
Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was accused of forcing himself on the girl as she slept off a night of drinking on the sofa of his Maida Vale flat.
He had already had sex with her 24-year-old friend and said his penis might have been poking out of his underwear after that sexual encounter when he tripped on the 18-year-old
The 18-year-old met Abdulaziz in the exclusive Cirque le Soir nightclub in the West End on 7 August last year where she had been spending the evening with her friend, who was known to the businessman.
He invited them to join him at his £1,000-per-night table and then offered them a ride home in his Aston Martin.
The three went back to his apartment, where he offered them designer Roberto Cavalli vodka before taking the second girl into the bedroom for sex.
Read more: Saudi businessman who claimed he 'may have penetrated teen after falling on top of her' cleared of rape
The teenager claimed she woke in the early hours with Abdulaziz on top of her forcing himself inside her.
Abdulaziz said he had accidentally fallen on the youngster as she tried to seduce him, and that was how traces of his DNA came to be in her vagina.
He said he had gone to wake her to offer her a T-shirt to sleep in or a taxi ride home, but she had pulled him on top of her and placed his hand between her legs.
The jury acquitted Abdulaziz of one count of rape after just 30 minutes of deliberations.
In his evidence, Abdulaziz demonstrated how the complainant had put her hand behind his head to pull her towards him, causing him to fall down.
"I'm fragile, I fell down but nothing ever happened, between me and this girl nothing ever happened," he insisted.
He said it was possible he had semen on his hands after the sexual encounter with her friend.
Abdulaziz, of Nightingale Lodge, Admiral Walk, Maida Vale, was cleared of one count of rape.
During the trial, Judge Martin Griffiths permitted the rare step of allowing 20 minutes of Abdulaziz's evidence to be heard in private.
Britain: Saudi Arabia’s silent partner in Yemen’s civil war
British missiles and jets made and sold to the Saudis are part of a war that the Government wants us to overlook
Iona Craig
...
Over five months spent in Yemen since the civil war began, I have witnessed numerous air strikes and visited the sites of scores more bombings across the country. The mounds of rubble I clambered over in recent months include the remnants of schools, hospitals, markets, food stores, civilian homes and public buses.
Many of these were “double-tap” strikes, where first responders were attacked as they tried to rescue the victims of an initial bombing. The evidence I collected from witnesses and survivors clearly indicated that civilians are, at best, being indiscriminately killed and, in some cases, targeted. Despite a strong likelihood that British weapons are being used – Britain exported more than 1,000 bombs to Saudi in the first six months of 2015 – to target civilians and civilian infrastructure, the UK government refuses to recognise its complicity in clear breaches of international humanitarian law.
...
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...nt-partner-in-yemen-s-civil-war-a6780186.html
The silence of the human rights pretenders is deafening.
British missiles and jets made and sold to the Saudis are part of a war that the Government wants us to overlook
Iona Craig
...
Over five months spent in Yemen since the civil war began, I have witnessed numerous air strikes and visited the sites of scores more bombings across the country. The mounds of rubble I clambered over in recent months include the remnants of schools, hospitals, markets, food stores, civilian homes and public buses.
Many of these were “double-tap” strikes, where first responders were attacked as they tried to rescue the victims of an initial bombing. The evidence I collected from witnesses and survivors clearly indicated that civilians are, at best, being indiscriminately killed and, in some cases, targeted. Despite a strong likelihood that British weapons are being used – Britain exported more than 1,000 bombs to Saudi in the first six months of 2015 – to target civilians and civilian infrastructure, the UK government refuses to recognise its complicity in clear breaches of international humanitarian law.
...
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...nt-partner-in-yemen-s-civil-war-a6780186.html
The silence of the human rights pretenders is deafening.
Millionaire businessman cleared of raping teenager after he told court he may have accidentally penetrated her
Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, has been cleared of forcing himself on an 18-year-old girl as she slept off a night of drinking on his sofa
This would be evidence of a banana republic without context.
Yemen: Coalition Bombs Homes in Capital
UK Government attempting to keep details of secret security pact with Saudi Arabia hidden from public
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-with-saudi-arabia-hidden-from-a6783376.html
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/21/yemen-coalition-bombs-homes-capital
UK Government attempting to keep details of secret security pact with Saudi Arabia hidden from public
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-with-saudi-arabia-hidden-from-a6783376.html
I would have thought that you would have supported the Saudi action in Yemen.
They were invited in by the govt, they are bombing terrorists and holding up a regime which would fall to extremists. Ticks all the boxes?
The situation is Yemen is a disaster. Somewhere i read, that about 2/3 of the population would depend on foreign aid to get through the next year. Not sure if those numbers are correct, but the amount of human suffering must be crazy.
I don't support anything Saudi Arabia does because they're the root of the terrorist ideology in the region and the world, imo.
They're not bombing the terrorists. They're, not surprisingly, again bombing the forces that are fighting Al-Qaeda in Yemen, and after the Saudi intervention Al-Qaeda extended its control in Yemen, surprise surprise.
My position has been clear and consistent. I never hid behind dishonest excuses. I've always said my number 1 priority in any conflict that involves the Wahhabi extremists is not allowing them to seize power, because that will be very dangerous for the region and the world in the long term and it will be very difficult to reverse, because you'll grow a new generation of terrorists (the children who fall under their control) and it will be very difficult to deal with them in the future.
Some here, on the other side of the debate, don't really care about terrorism, and their number 1 priority is Russia. Clearly I have no problem with that, everybody is entitled to his opinion and what he perceives the real danger is. However, unlike me, those people are not always honest about what they really care about, and try to claim that their number 1 priority is democracy and human rights. To those people I put the mirror in front of them, and try to help them come clean so we can have an honest and constructive debate. So far only Raoul have admitted what this is all about.
Notice I never posted anything in this thread for months. I'm only posting some news now because some are trying to distort the picture, and I thought this will be necessary so everybody can maintain some degree of perspective.
Saudi Arabia executed 47 people today including a popular Shia cleric. There has been condemnation from the usual suspects Iran, Lebanon. Others silent. The event has sparked protests in Bahrain. Will the Saudis send forces there again?
Its pretty much the beginning of the end of the Saudi family. A failing war in Yemen, being well over their heads in Syria, the West's inclination towards Iran at their expense, being on the brink of bankruptcy and having to charge their citizens tax for the first time in history.
The sooner they and the Wahabists can be purged from human existence the better it'll be for the region and the world.
The sooner they and the Wahabists can be purged from human existence the better it'll be for the region and the world.
I don't think the family is on the brink but whatever comes after the family will be more extreme. No doubt about it.
Do you know who the other 46 were? Mainly Sunni scholars. This was a political move. Sheikh Nimr (the Shia one) and the other 46 were thorns in the House of Saud's side (some were AQ). It wasn't a sectarian or religious move, but political. The move to execute Sheikh Nimr was to detract from the 46 Sunni scholars. There has been no outrage at that, which is very, very telling.
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Regardless the inaccuracies (among those 47, 4 were actually Shia, and the rest weren't "scholars" but people involved in the attacks that happened in Saudi Arabia between 2003-2006). However, the difference is, the remaining 40 or so were actually involved in violent actions, Al-Nimr wasn't, so they weren't executed on the same grounds.
But anyway, when you said it was not "sectarian", were you talking only about this incident or talking generally? Do you think the Saud family is sectarian in the way it rules Saudi Arabia or not?
And if we're talking theories and opinions, my opinion is that they executed him as revenge for killing Alloush (whom they practically raised since his childhood).
He was the only one killed after a flawed trial with no obvious grounds for prosecution. So yes it was a sectarian move. And the reason there's been no outrage for the other 46 is because they're not scholars, nor are they all Sunni.
I don't know much about the other 46, but Sheikh Nimr was hardly an innocent citizen executed on sectarian grounds.
He was a peaceful dissident who called for free elections and rejected violence. He is also a fierce critic of Assad. Considering the shambolic excuse of a trial he had, it was obvious he was executed since he was peacefully galvanising the marginalised Shia population of Saudi Arabia. This was also probably a spiteful execution considering the death of Jaysh Al Islam's leader as well as other Sunni Islamist setbacks in Iraq and Syria.
Peaceful? He was the leader behind attacks on police stations and killing bystanders in Qateef. That's just one thing among the list of other stuff he was up to these past years. My Shi'ite friend, who is from the same city as Nimr, hates him for what he brought to them.
You have a source for that? All I read was the Saudi allegation that there was an exchange of fire between his car and police officers. Not read or heard anything about him mastermind attacks on police stations.
Besides he was pretty much sentenced to death because of his views, which says it all really.
I'll try and look them up, though I think most of them aren't in English.
If they're in Arabic that's fine too. Thanks.
Millionaire businessman cleared of raping teenager after he told court he may have accidentally penetrated her
Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, has been cleared of forcing himself on an 18-year-old girl as she slept off a night of drinking on his sofa
A Saudi millionaire has been cleared of raping a teenager after claiming he might have accidentally penetrated the 18-year-old when he tripped and fell on her.
Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was accused of forcing himself on the girl as she slept off a night of drinking on the sofa of his Maida Vale flat.
He had already had sex with her 24-year-old friend and said his penis might have been poking out of his underwear after that sexual encounter when he tripped on the 18-year-old
The 18-year-old met Abdulaziz in the exclusive Cirque le Soir nightclub in the West End on 7 August last year where she had been spending the evening with her friend, who was known to the businessman.
He invited them to join him at his £1,000-per-night table and then offered them a ride home in his Aston Martin.
The three went back to his apartment, where he offered them designer Roberto Cavalli vodka before taking the second girl into the bedroom for sex.
Read more: Saudi businessman who claimed he 'may have penetrated teen after falling on top of her' cleared of rape
The teenager claimed she woke in the early hours with Abdulaziz on top of her forcing himself inside her.
Abdulaziz said he had accidentally fallen on the youngster as she tried to seduce him, and that was how traces of his DNA came to be in her vagina.
He said he had gone to wake her to offer her a T-shirt to sleep in or a taxi ride home, but she had pulled him on top of her and placed his hand between her legs.
The jury acquitted Abdulaziz of one count of rape after just 30 minutes of deliberations.
In his evidence, Abdulaziz demonstrated how the complainant had put her hand behind his head to pull her towards him, causing him to fall down.
"I'm fragile, I fell down but nothing ever happened, between me and this girl nothing ever happened," he insisted.
He said it was possible he had semen on his hands after the sexual encounter with her friend.
Abdulaziz, of Nightingale Lodge, Admiral Walk, Maida Vale, was cleared of one count of rape.
During the trial, Judge Martin Griffiths permitted the rare step of allowing 20 minutes of Abdulaziz's evidence to be heard in private.
Just seen this. What the actual feck!I was talking about this incident specifically. I'm not fan of the Saud family, and their continued existence at the seat of the Hejaz irks me daily. And yes, there were Scholars executed. In fact, many men of knowledge (and teenagers involved in anti-gov't protests) were killed....(read below my reply to Kaos)
It is a political move.
Sheikh Faris al Zahrani was also executed. He was high up in AQ, but a fierce critic of al Saud family, and was a thorn in their side continuously. Both he and Shk Nimr called for action against al Saud family.
Here is his (Shk Nimr's) speech against Prince Nayyef and the family:
Here is Shk Zahrani and his speech against the Saud family:
Both are pretty vociferous in their speech, and Shk Nimr way more so.
They were cut from the same cloth (but with different ideologies), both were militant and staunchly anti House of Saud. The killing of Shk Zahrani has really ruffled the Salafi feathers (trust me). The killing of Sheikh Nimr was a distraction / tactical move to allow the family getting away with the killing of Salafi scholars and students of knowledge (of which there were many in the 46). Let's be honest, if it wasn't for Makkah and Medina, the Saud family would be beneath the people's feet. King Faisal was a ray of hope in an otherwise pretty pathetic bloodline. Most of the people / youth killed were from the fall out of Saudi's Arab Spring, and it is a move by the gov't to crush any dissent, which is why I said it wasn't a sectarian move, but a political one. There's a reason why the scholars who live to their old age are in the pockets of the family, and those that want change are either in jail or dead. It's frustrating for me seeing men of knowledge being slain in political moves, and yes, I agree, it stokes the sectarian fire killing Shk Nimr, but it's not a sectarian move. And doesn't it seem political that some of the executed were members of AQ...the same AQ that is sponsored and funded by the Saud family? SA played a huge role in training of some of these guys to fight Soviet oppression, and when these same guys saw that SA, a false monarchy, only really cared or their own national interests and protecting themselves, they turned their fight to them. So, in a political move, they struck off those that went against them.
To the rest of your post - they're all flawed trials. SA wants to show that they're the beacon of Islamic Law etc, when they're really really not. Do you think any one of these guys got anything close to a free trial? And out of the 47, 43-45 were Sunni (can't find exact figures).
While I don't agree with the death penalty, Zahrani had more grounds for his crimes considering his affiliation with AQ. Who was Nimr affiliated with? The man was a vocal critic of Assad and has even been openly critical of the Iranian government. The Saudis had clearly provoked this to escalate a Sunni-Shia standoff in the region, largely I'd imagine due to their frustrations with the Iranian nuclear deal and things not going swimmingly down south in Yemen. Its an act of desperation trying to galvanise the Sunni states into cornering Iran and her Shia allies.
Good post. Can't really argue with whatever either sheik Nimr or sheik zahrani said.
Well neither deserved to be executed. Sheikh Nimr was heavily involved in SA's Arab Spring and galvanised the Shia majority. Likewise Skh Zahrani has been critical of the family for 10 years. It's a political move by the family to eradicate the voices that they don't want to hear. To me, killing Shk Nimr (and the fallout) is to distract from the other 46. And it's worked.
I don't think it's sectarian at all, but that won't stop SA from using sectarianism to distract from their own dealings.
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