Iran and Saudi Arabia clash in Yemen proxy war?

Fighting continued for a sixth day on Monday between the Saudi military and Yemeni rebels on their countries’ border, with the rebels releasing a videotape of what they said was one of several captured Saudi soldiers. Saudi Arabia hammered the rebels with airstrikes and artillery fire, and captured about 280 rebel fighters, said a Saudi [...]

Saudis being dragged into Yemen war

According to UPI, the Saudis, who don’t want Iran stirring up trouble on their porous southern flank, have been financing Saleh’s counterinsurgency campaign to the tune of millions of dollars a week.There have been repeated reports, largely from the northern rebels who are known as al-Houthis after the clan leading the rebellion, that the Saudi [...]

Saudis Say 44 Al-Qaida Militants Held

Saudi authorities arrested 44 suspected militants with al-Qaida links in a year-long sweep that uncovered dozens of machine guns and electronic circuits for bombs, the government said.

Saudi Arabia illegally detaining thousands of terrorism suspects

After Amnesty International, it’s now time for Human Rights Watch to issue a report about how Saudi Arabia is illegally detaining thousands of prisoners. HRW reports that since 2003, thousands of terrorism suspects have been detained indefinitely, in violation of Saudi law, which limits pre-trial detentions to six months. The report also charges that the [...]

Amnesty publishes report on human rights abuses in the name of fighting terrorism in Saudi Arabia

According to Amnesty, the Saudi Arabian authorities have imposed a range of counter-terrorism measures that have worsened what was already a dire human rights situation. Security officials used counter-terrorism as a cover to arrest and detain government critics, including academics and human rights defenders, who have no direct links to extremists, researchers claim.
Combined with longstanding [...]

Saudi security courts convicts 330 al-Qaeda militants

(AFP) — Saudi security courts sentenced one person to death and others to prison in the first trials arising from Al-Qaeda’s bloody 2003-2006 campaign of attacks inside the kingdom, the justice ministry said on Wednesday.
Altogether 330 people were tried out of 991 charged in the attacks, with an unspecified number convicted on charges including conspiring [...]

Iraqi commentators: Saudi Arabia is behind terrorist attacks in Iraq

As terrorism in Iraq increased in the lead-up to the June 30, 2009 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq’s cities, official Iraqi sources began to openly accuse Saudi Arabia of aiding terrorism in Iraq in order to prevent the withdrawal. Hadi Al-Ameri, chairman of Iraq’s parliamentary Security and Defense Committee, accused Saudi Arabia of heading a group [...]

Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists

Documents gathered by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims which provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family, were leaked anonymously to lawyers for the families. The Justice Department had the lawyers’ copies destroyed and now wants to prevent a [...]

Islamist radicalization: the challenge for euro-mediterranean relations

New publication by Fride and CEPS. Read it here.
Part I. The question1. Is the EU contributing to re-radicalisation?Robert Springborg ……………………………………………………………………………… 1
Part II. Case studies in Islamist radicalisation2. Trends in political Islam in EgyptIbrahim El Houdaiby …………………………………………………………………………. 25
3. Understanding Hamas’s radicalisationKhaled Al-Hashimi …………………………………………………………………………… 52
4. Trends in SalafismOmayma Abdel-Latif ………………………………………………………………………… 69
5. Turkey: A sustainable case of de-radicalisation?Senem [...]

Federal Insurance Co. v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

(Scotus) In No. 08-640, Federal Insurance Co. v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United States has filed a brief recommending that cert. be denied.  The case arises out of the September 11 attacks and alleges, inter alia, that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi High Commission for Relief to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and four [...]