Free Republic

Jerusalem — Saudi Arabia has been identified as the source of the growing Islamization in the U.S. military. A leading analyst asserted that Saudi Arabia spent millions of dollars in its effort to convert U.S. soldiers to Islam. Dr. Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, said the campaign pioneered by the Saudis began during the 1991 war against Iraq, which involved the deployment of nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. "Nearly two decades have passed since the Saudi conversion campaign, and most of the converts may no longer be in uniforms,"...

Jizan, Asharq Al-Awsat- Saudi security forces have regained control of a large mountainous region from the Huthi rebels who had infiltrated Saudi Arabia last week, routing them from the area. Assistant Minister of Defense and Aviation, Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdulaziz informed the Saudi Press Agency [SPA] that "The Saudi region of Jabal Dokhan is back under full and complete Saudi control." Informed sources also revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that 155 Huthi insurgents have been arrested in the past 72 hours. Limited heavy artillery fire could be heard across the Saudi/Yemeni border region on Saturday, and there were reports...

SAN'A, Yemen – Saudi Arabia has launched a large military incursion across the border into northern Yemen, using fighter jets and artillery bombardments to try to end a Shiite rebellion inside its troubled southern neighbor, Arab diplomats and the rebels said Thursday. The northern rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces intensively over the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic conflict that has lasted five years. The Hawthis are based in northern Saada province, which borders Saudi Arabia. "Saudi jets dropped bombs on a crowded areas including local market in the northern province...

Revenge of the Pigs Fears for the Hajj Raised thelastcrusade.org. Pigs may get their revenge against Islam.They have been classified as filth (najasa) by shariah (Muslim) law.A Muslim must purify himself of anything made impure by contact with a pig.Swine are considered as vile and disgusting as “non-Muslims at war with Muslims, apostates from Islam, convicted married adulterers, and biting dogs.”Yet more Muslims are likely to die of swine flu this year than the adherrents of any other religion.The mass Islamic infection of the H1N1 virus is expected to occur during the five day hajj that will take place...

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Arab prof: 'Blowing oneself up' OK in Tel Aviv But asserts suicide bombings against Saudis not legitimate Posted: October 26, 2009 10:16 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2009 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – Suicide bombings are OK in Tel Aviv, Israel, but not in Saudi Arabia, declared a Saudi professor speaking on Arab satellite television. "Someone who blows himself up amidst the enemy is different from someone who blows himself up in a safe place. Blowing oneself up in Tel Aviv is not like blowing oneself up in Riyadh," stated Saudi University professor Salman Al-Abdali on Iqra...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A Saudi court on Saturday convicted a female journalist for her involvement in a TV show, in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex, and sentenced her to 60 lashes. Rozanna al-Yami is believed to be the first Saudi woman journalist to be given such a punishment. The charges against her included involvement in the preparation of the program and advertising the segment on the Internet. Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, the spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Information, told The Associated Press he had no details of the sentencing and could not comment on it. In...

The woman made the discovery while examining the list of contacts in her husband's phone when he left it at home one day, the Al-Watan newspaper reported. The Riyadh newspaper did not name the woman or her husband, whose comparison between life with his wife and life within the detention centre at the US naval base in Cuba may have proved ill judged. His wife has since decided to end their 17-year marriage and is seeking a divorce. But the newspaper suggested she might settle for "substantial" financial compensation from her husband and stay married to him.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The two al-Qaida militants killed in a recent shootout sneaked into Saudi Arabia from Yemen and were planning to carry out a massive attack, the Interior Ministry spokesman said Sunday. Four explosive belts — three of them ready to use — were found in the car used by the militants in Tuesday's shootout which suggests that at least four people were going to take part in the attack, ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press.

ARAR – Border Guards detained six Somalis – three males and three females – as they attempted to enter Iraqi territory on foot from the Kingdom Friday. The official spokesman of the Border Guards directorate-general, Lt. Col. Salim Bin Saleh Al-Salmi, said the six were in the Kingdom in violation of residency and labor laws. The foiled attempt to slip into Iraq was seemingly a new tactic, possibly being tested for the first time. “The six Somalis tried to get into Iraq using broad daylight as camouflage,” Lt. Col. Al-Salmi said. “Investigations are continuing to ascertain whether they are on...

BANGKOK — There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis. Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis. Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels. That campaign comes despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was joined by world leaders and nearly 3,000 guests as he delivered the keynote address to inaugurate the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Other speakers during the ceremony included the KAUST Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, His Excellency Ali Al-Naimi, Minister of Higher Education, His Excellency Dr. Khaled Al-Anqari, and the President of KAUST, Professor Choon Fong Shih.

As the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) approaches capacity (721.5 million barrels filled out of a total possible 727 million, and will be filled by January 2010), the federal government will fade out of the oil-buying business. Some bearish traders believe that this factor can weigh in on prices, since most petroleum stocks in the United States are government-held rather than private. Bullish traders have also used the filling of the Chinese SPR as a reason that oil should go much higher. Planned government buying or selling of crude oil for SPRs actually have very little impact in the overall...

(IsraelNN.com) According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the number of requests received by American companies from Saudi Arabia to boycott Israel has increased by more than 75% in the past two years, rising from 42 in 2006 to 65 in 2007 to 74 in 2008.

We report, you decide.

A leading Saudi cleric has called on Muslims not to pray for the destruction of unbelievers. A supplication to that effect is often reiterated at the end of every Friday prayer in Arab countries, something critics say can radicalise youth. Sheikh Salman al-Awda said such prayers were against Islamic sharia. But he added they were permissible if the interests of Muslims were harmed, so his words may have little effect on radicals who oppose the US or Israel.

police have targeted those who “break their fast publicly” and if caught eating or drinking anything in daylight, police have arrested them immediately, including one man who was purchasing juice for his family. That man, Ahmed Mustafa, was quoted by al-Youm al-Saba’a as saying “I was standing at the store buying juice for my children for Iftar [meal that breaks the fast],” adding that he was indeed fasting. He is just one of many citizens who have felt the heavy hand of Egyptian police during the holy month. It is part of an odd campaign launched by the interior ministry...

In a move to preserve religious and moral values in cyberspace, a group of unidentified Saudis have launched a "clean" Islamic alternative to the leading video-sharing site YouTube. Naqa means "pure" in Arabic. The website offers a collection of edited and Islamically "clean" clips from YouTube under the banner, “Participate with us in a clean website." Site administrators censor video clips that express critical views of the government, Islamic scholars and members of the Saudi royal family.

The United States has no alternative to oil to meet its massive energy needs and should recognize its energy interdependence with the Middle East, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote in an article on Friday. U.S. President Barack Obama has been pushing to boost green energy which cuts emissions of heat-trapping gases and reduces the use of fossil fuels. In his election campaign, Obama raised some potentially disturbing issues for the Saudis, such as ending dependence on Middle Eastern oil. In the article translated into Italian and published by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Turki said energy independence was...

New details reveal the man who tried to assassinate a Saudi prince got past palace security with explosives hidden in his Rectum. - The man who tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s anti-terror chief last Thursday managed to get past security in a Jeddah palace by hiding explosives in his Rectum. - Details of the assassination attempt, the first against a member of the Saudi royal family in decades, were revealed to the pan-Arab Al-Arabiyya. - The method of hiding explosives inside the body is unprecedented among Al-Qa’ida terrorists, and may draw a re-examination and alteration of security arrangements around sensitive...

A Saudi Arabian father forced his 10-year-old daughter to return to her 80-year-old husband Sunday, after she was found hiding at the home of her aunt for 10 days, Arab News reported.

26 August 2009 INDONESIAN BOMBING SUSPECT A JIHAD MAGAZINE PUBLISHER AND WEBMASTER As of today he's in the custody of Detachment 88. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. First the news reports: • Preacher's son arrested: Mohammad Jibril runs his father's company, Ar-rahmah Media, which publishes religious books and JihadMagz, a glossy 148-page magazine devoted to Islamic fighters and wars across the world. He also set up the militant website, arrahmah.com, which posts news in Bahasa Indonesia and English on the Islamic struggle to preserve and spread their religion.

SNIPPET: "Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz died in Jeddah last Saturday." SNIPPET: "The serial libel tourist Khalid bin Mahfouz is dead. But the jihad against the West he helped fund, together with pernicious British libel tourism practices, are alive and well. Unfortunately, the U.S. government did nothing to stop his activities on either front when he was alive. Now Congress has the opportunity to reverse Mahfouz’s legacy of libel tourism. New York State, Florida and Illinois have already passed anti- libel tourism laws, and another was just passed unanimously by the California legislature." SNIPPET: "A law to protect Americans free...

Swine flu, economic downturn overshadow Ramadan by Paul Handley 1 hr 57 mins ago RIYADH (AFP) – Muslims entered the fasting and feasting month of Ramadan on Saturday with swine flu and the economic downturn adding to the security fears that plague several Islamic countries in dampening the mood. The threat from the A(H1N1) virus prompted a string of governments to bar their citizens from making the pilgrimage to the holy places in Saudi Arabia traditionally made by many Muslims during Ramadan, while financial worries forced many families to cut back on their holiday spending. In the Saudi cities of...

With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants. The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

The following image includes two screen shots from "Sharpe's Challenge," in which Richard Sharpe (in disguise as a deserter) receives a gold chain from a Raja named Khande Rao. The context and the body language show clearly that the gesture is that of a superior (the Raja) to a subordinate (Sharpe). The right panel shows Barack Obama accepting a gold chain from the King of Saudi Arabia. With the exception of the fact that the President of the United States is admittedly not on his knees in front of a foreign monarch, does anybody see any significant difference between the...

A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a "genie" to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say. They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said. The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out. A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans.

A coalition of concerned citizens is contemplating its next move now that the Fairfax County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors has granted a Saudi-funded Islamic academy a zoning exemption to allow it to expand its facility. The Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force (VAST) had lobbied hard against the move. But on Monday, by a 6-4 vote, the Fairfax County supervisors sided with the Islamic Saudi Academy which had requested a zoning exemption to expand its 34-acre campus to accommodate 200 additional students. While there were some concerns about added traffic problems, the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force voiced its concerns about the curriculum...

For nearly 25 years, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), the Virginia school founded by royal decree of Saudi King Fahd in 1984, immersed students of its Islamic-studies curriculum in the same Wahhabi interpretation of Islam that is taught in Saudi Arabia and in Saudi-funded madrassas around the world. That curriculum includes praise for militant jihad to “spread the faith” and permission for the killing of various categories of “unbelievers,” as well as other endorsements of religious intolerance. Now, as it seeks permission from Fairfax County to expand its operations, ISA claims that, over the last school year, it replaced the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saudi Arabia on Friday bluntly rejected U.S. appeals for improved relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks, saying the Jewish state is not interested in a deal. After talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said his country will not consider steps suggested by U.S. Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell until Israel accepts Arab demands to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territories. "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach, has not and, we believe, will not lead to peace," Saud said as Clinton looked on at...

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a Falls Church man and a member of al Qaeda who admitted he was planning to assassinate then-President George W. Bush, was sentenced to life in prison Monday at federal court in Alexandria. Abu Ali was originally sentenced in 2005 to 30 years in prison. U.S. Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the U.S. District Court for eastern Virginia ruled Monday that Abu Ali should spend life in prison partially because he never renounced his al Qaeda ties. After the initial sentencing, both sides filed appeals. Abu Ali completed some of his sentence in solitary confinement at...

BOSTON – A crowd of hundreds of local Muslims inaugurated a large new mosque last week in Roxbury Crossing. The 68,000 sq foot Islamic Cultural Center in the heart of Boston, designed by Dr. Sami Angawi, and pioneered by board member Dr. Walid Fitaihi, Dr. Osama Kandeel and others, celebrated its inauguration with the historic attendance of the first Muslim in the United States Congress, Keith Ellison, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. This new Islamic cultural center in America is tremendously significant as it resides 5 minutes from the heart of downtown Boston and less than...

Last month, a Saudi Arabian man named Raed Abdul-Rahman Al-Saif, placed three bags on the Tampa, Florida airport security conveyor belt as he made his way toward his gate to board US Airways flight 1077 to Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. He never made it to the gate. A Transportation Security Administration representative saw something on his screen that made him curious. Upon further investigation, TSA officers found a knife “artfully concealed between the outside fabric and the expandable pull handles of the bag.” This bag, by the way, would have been easily accessed by Al-Saif had he made it...

Hello freedom fighters, Attend the Fairfax County Board meeting on Monday, July 13th to have your voice heard! If we don’t want to live with Muslim intimidation then we have to go on the offensive, and let them know we mean business. It was nerve wracking before I spoke at the planning commission hearing in March because there were a lot of Muslims there making their presence known. But once I spoke I realized that there is power in standing up and saying, no, we will not let you get away with this. Listening to these people lie to get...

Families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks are trying to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, the country from which 15 of the 19 hijackers came from. The legal team has new documents outlining the Saudis’ history of bankrolling terrorism and extremism, helping to expose the pattern of deception used by the Saudis to portray themselves as a staunch ally of the United States. The legal team, for example, has a sworn statement from someone in Afghanistan who says he personally saw a representative of Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence, give a check for $267 million...

Ever since the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, the American public and the media have demanded a nearly unreachable standard of proof before indicting a foreign government. When someone calls Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, proof that they are “linked” to al-Qaeda is demanded. Once al-Qaeda’s refuge in Iran is offered as a counterpoint, proof that the regime knows of their presence and that the group isn’t merely working with “rogue elements” of the government, but the government as a whole, is required. Then, inevitably, the topic is diverted to Afghanistan and Pakistan, arguing that whatever base of...

Dubai, Jun 20 : Saudi Arabia has denied media reports that it intends to allow Israeli military planes to fly over its airspace....''No Saudi official has met with any Israeli official. There was no such meeting to discuss this matter in any form,'' the SPA said quoting the Ministry of Defence and Aviation source as saying

A Saudi princess has been sued over $126,000 in unpaid lingerie and clothing bills at a Paris boutique, AFP reported. Another upscale Paris store, lingerie store "Aux Caprices de Lily," told AFP Maha al-Sudairi, wife of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, owes them $98,000. In total, the princess owes millions in unpaid shopping bills to a string of high-end Paris retailers.

Debate Erupts Over Muslim School in Virginia By THEO EMERY June 10, 2009 FAIRFAX, Va. — For years, children’s voices rang out from the playground at the Islamic Saudi Academy in this heavily wooded community about 20 miles west of Washington. But for the last year the campus has been silent as academy officials seek county permission to erect a new classroom building and move hundreds of students from a sister campus on the other end of Fairfax County. The proposal from the academy, which a school spokeswoman said was the only school financed by the Saudi government in the...

RIYADH (Reuters) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has urged U.S. President Barack Obama to impose a solution on the festering Arab-Israeli conflict if necessary, a Saudi newspaper said on Sunday. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states want Obama to get tough with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has balked at Palestinian statehood and defied U.S. calls to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements. King Abdullah told Obama during his visit to Riyadh last week that Arab patience was wearing thin and that a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would be the "magic key" to all issues in the...

US lawmakers slam Saudi for teaching 'hatred'Democratic legislators urge Saudi government to eliminate hateful teaching from classrooms. First Published 2009-06-04 WASHINGTON - US lawmakers on Wednesday called on the Saudi government to stop distributing children's religious textbooks they claimed incited hatred and intolerance toward Jews, women and homosexuals, although such alleged incitements are present in interpretations of Christianity and Judaism. The request by three Democratic legislators coincided with President Barack Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week to shore up beleaguered US relations with Muslims worldwide. "This is not some rogue document," Congressman Anthony Weiner told reporters. "This...

When President Obama first met the Saudi royals, he seemed to bow at the waist. Either that or he doubled over in pain. Did he bow? Or didn’t he bow? That was the topic du jour at the press briefing that day. But now we have the answer: Obama is, indeed, really bowing to the Saudis as he visits the Middle East this week.

(AP) — WASHINGTON - Barack Obama began on Day One of his presidency to "reboot" America's damaged relationship with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. With this week's Mideast trip and long-promised speech in Cairo, he takes a perilous leap into the effort. It's a big gamble. As Obama prepares to leave Washington on Tuesday for stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, followed by a jaunt through Europe, the president and his advisers see an urgent need to try to reverse animosity toward the U.S. felt among Muslims around the globe.

Saudi Arabian officials beheaded and then publicly displayed the body of a convicted killer in Riyadh on Friday, an act that prompted a stiff denunciation by a leading human rights monitor. The Saudi Interior Ministry said Ahmed Al-Shamlani Al-Anzi was sentenced to death and then "crucifixion" -- having his body displayed in public -- for the kidnapping and killing of an 11-year-old boy and for the killing of the boy's father, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. Amnesty International issued a statement deploring the punishment, with the group's Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui saying in a statement it is "horrific" that...

<p>RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi authorities beheaded and crucified a man convicted of brutally slaying an 11-year-old boy and his father, the Interior Ministry announced.</p> <p>According to the statement issued by the ministry Friday, shop owner Ahmed al-Anzi molested the boy and then strangled him with a length of rope. He then stabbed the boy's father to death when the man came looking for his son.</p>

The Obama administration is supporting efforts by the Saudi royal family to defeat a long-running lawsuit seeking to hold it liable for the Sept.11, 2001, attacks. The Justice Department, in a brief filed Friday before the Supreme Court, said it did not believe the Saudis could be sued in American court over accusations brought by families of the Sept. 11 victims that the royal family had helped finance Al Qaeda.The department said it saw no need for the court to review lower court rulings that found in the Saudis’ favor in throwing out the lawsuit. The government’s position comes less...

Obama will visit Saudi Arabia on June 3 for talks on Iran's nuclear program and Washington's renewed push for a Middle East peace plan, the White House said on Tuesday....

A Saudi Arabian inventor has applied in Germany for a patent for a human tracking microchip that could be used to track wanted criminals. The Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger dubbed the device a “killer chip,” which it noted also could be employed to track “political opponents, defectors, domestic help, and Saudi Arabians who don’t return home from pilgrimages." After implantation, the chip would send out coded radio waves that satellites can track to confirm a person’s identity and location. A second chip would release a deadly poison if a security risk is involved.

It could be the ultimate in political control — but it won't be patented in Germany. German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied. The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily. Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat. The inventor said...

A SAUDI judge has told a seminar on domestic violence that it is okay for a man to slap his wife for lavish spending, a local newspaper has reported. Jeddah judge Hamad al-Razine gave the example of overspending to buy a high-end abaya, the head-to toe black shroud Saudi women have to wear in public, as justifying a smack for one's wife, Arab News said. ”If a person gives 1,200 riyals ($423.50) to his wife and she spends 900 riyals ($317.65) to purchase an abaya from a brand shop, and if her husband slaps her on the face as a...