Serious policy differences between the usually secretive members of the House of Saud have turned into a feud that is threatening to unravel the carefully constructed façade of dynastic rule maintained by bribes and terror for more than seven decades. Personal ambitions, coupled with fears that they may not survive long in power if the US flees Iraq after its defeat, have resulted in some strange public behaviour by Saudi royals.
The publication of a 900-page congressional report last month into intelligence lapses before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in September 2001, ignited speculation about Saudi involvement after the White House refused to authorise the publication of 28 pages reportedly pertaining to allegations against the Saudis.
Last month’s bomb-blasts at Western targets in Saudi Arabia and Morocco followed the conclusion of the US invasion of Iraq. The bomb-explosions in Riyadh on May 12 killed 24 people and wounded dozens. Four days later another 24 people were killed in five blasts in Casablanca, Morocco...
The Fiqh Council of North America, which is linked to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), has issued an astonishing statement regarding the date of Eid al-Adha, which amounts to a recommendation that Muslims ignore the commandments of Allah.
Although Muslims worldwide started the month of Ramadhan on the correct day, there is growing concern that similar unity may elude them when it comes to celebrating Eid. The Saudis’ Um al-Qura calendar has already declared Eid on Thursday, December 5...
Recent reports that US forces were preparing to leave their bases in Saudi Arabia created the initial impression that the US’s military presence in the Gulf Cooperation Council states was about to be reduced...
Saudi crown prince Abdullah bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz had more than the Israeli-Arab conflict on his mind when he staged his latest subterfuge. This was to disclose that he might propose that the Arab world offer Israel “normalization of relations” in exchange for withdrawal from the territories that Israel occupied in 1967.
Whether the US-led war on Afghanistan will overthrow the Taliban is a moot point, but it has already caused tremors in Saudi Arabia. Not because the House of Saud is concerned about what happens to the Taliban or the Afghans...
Ten years after the end of the US attack on Iraq, more than 5,000 Iraqis remain stranded and largely forgotten in appalling conditions in the Rafha refugee camp in north-eastern Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia would not usually engage in public squabbling with the US, with which it has a ‘strategic alliance’, and Washington would not usually humiliate one of its most valuable and dependable proxies in the Middle East.
On June 4, when members of the United Nations security council failed to reach agreement on a new sanctions plan proposed by the US and Britain, they decided to extend by one month, instead of the usual six months, the programme under which Iraq can sell oil to raise funds to buy food and to pay “reparations” to western governments.
Iraq won a significant political victory on July 4, when the US and Britain were forced to abandon their ‘smart sanctions’ proposals and agree to a five-month extension of the ‘oil-for-food’ programme.
There was a time, not long ago, when Aal-e Saud were at the forefront of the West’s drive to subvert Islam and the Muslim Ummah. During the 1970s, the Saudi monarchs distributed petro-dollars to mosques and Islamic centres all over the world, usually through international front-organizations...
It is true that American and European traders and expatriates are the backbone of the multimillion-dollar market for smuggled alcohol in Saudi Arabia, and take the lion’s share of the proceeds.
The Emir of Bahrain, Shaykh Hamad bin ‘Issa al-Khalifah, announced in a speech marking the country’s National Day on December 16 that he will be taking the country another step towards democracy. But, like everything about politics in the Gulf Arab states, the Emir’s notion of political reform is of a controlled process in which freedom and participation are not rights of the citizenry but rather favours granted by the ruler.
Just as a 150-strong Saudi delegation, headed by the kingdom’s minister for industries, Dr Hashem Abdullah Yamani, was about to arrive in Tehran last month, the US announced that it had fresh evidence of Iranian involvement in the Khobar bombings in June 1996.
Prince Faisal bin Fahad, the son of king Fahad of Saudi Arabia, who has died at the age of 54, had been general manager for the Ministry of Youth and Sports since the late 1970s. The cause of his death was surrounded with vagueness and conflicting accounts.
Palestinians in Zionist-occupied Jerusalem last month marked the 30th anniversary of the arson attack on the Masjid Al-Aqsa on August 21, 1969. Palestinian Islamic leaders used the occasion to highlight continuing threats to the mosque, as well as other Islamic sites under Israeli rule
When the Saudi defence minister, prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, appeared in Islamabad in May, and reportedly toured Pakistani nuclear installations with prime minister Nawaz Sharif, he congratulated his hosts on the acquisition of the latest military technology of which ‘the Muslim was proud’...
When the Syrian ambassador in Washington, Walid al-Mu’allim, recently spoke about his country’s rights in the province of Alexandretta, he also signaled that the turbulent relations between Syria and Turkey have inched closer toward a crisis point.
