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A Saudi Arabian accused of associating with several of the September 11 hijackers and who disappeared from his home in the United States a few weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, is in London working for his country’s state oil company. Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife Anoud left three cars at their luxurious home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida — one of them new — and flew to Saudi Arabia in August 2001. The refrigerator was full of food; furniture and clothing were left behind; and the swimming pool water was still...

The world’s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, appears to have cut both its oil production and export in December, according to the latest update by the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI), an official source of oil production, consumption and export data. The OPEC heavyweight saw production decline by 237,000 barrels per day (bpd) from three-decade highs of 10.047 million bpd in November, the JODI data showed on Sunday. The draw-down was sharper for the actual amount exported, declining by 440,000 bpd, or 5.6 percent, to come in at 7.364 million bpd, the data also showed. The level would still be...

Many people who go for a meal at a restaurant would think how bad or good the food and service after they finish eating. But even if they liked the food, none of them would know how it was prepared inside. During a surprise visit, Saudi health inspectors caught a worker cleaning the chicken inside the toilet at a popular restaurant in the southern province of Jazan. Pictures published in the Arabic language daily Ajel showed the worker, who looks Asian, had already cleaned the chicken and prepared them for the grill. The chickens were placed on a skewer which...

Have you heard about the 23-year-old Saudi journalist who tweeted an imaginary conversation with Muhammad? It went something like this: He loved Muhammad, he hated Muhammad, he couldn’t understand Muhammad, he wasn’t going to pray for Muhammad. If this isn’t exactly a disquisition on faith and doubt a la “The Brothers Karamazov,” remember, we’re just talking Twitter. The journalist received so many mostly white-hot angry tweets from co-religionists condemning his Islamic law-breaking “blasphemy” (30,000 in 24 hours!) that he apologized and fled the country. He hoped to seek asylum in New Zealand but was captured in Malaysia by Saudi agents...

MALAYSIA has deported a young Saudi journalist wanted in his home country over a Twitter post about the Prophet Mohammed, defying pleas from human rights group who said he faced execution. Hamza Kashgari, who was detained in Malaysia after fleeing Saudi Arabia, has now left the country, national police spokesman Ramli Yoosuf said. "He was deported to Saudi Arabia," Ramli told AFP. A government offical said Kashgari was escorted back to his home country by Saudi officials. "He has been deported. He was picked up by Saudi officials at the airport," said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet's birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you … I will not pray for you." Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for him to be...

Let’s say you’re Israel. An enemy dedicated to your destruction is developing the means to wipe you off the face of the earth, with the covert and overt help of world powers like Russia and China. It’s only a matter of months before that enemy achieves its goals – and when it does you will not be able to stop the mushroom cloud rising over your cities. So you come up with a sophisticated military plan to strike your foe in an extraordinarily targeted fashion. And you ask for the help of your longtime ally – virtually your only ally...

It's now quite clear that Obama is playing chicken with Israel on Iranian nukes. That is why Leon Panetta came out with a statement this week accusing Israel of planning to attack Iran. If that statement is true, it's the worst kind of sabotage, undermining the advantages of surprise. If it's false, it is intended to place Israel at the focus of Iranian rage. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The goal of Obama's nuclear brinkmanship is to drive Israel into making dangerous territorial compromises. This is a Carteresque policy: blame the victim, and arm her enemy. Jimmy...

Washington, D.C. (February 7, 2012) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that earlier today Saudi Arabian officials sent a Muslim preacher to pressure Christian prisoners into converting to Islam. Saudi Arabia arrested 29 Christian women and six Christian men, all Ethiopian citizens, on December 15th after they held a prayer meeting in Jeddah. “The Muslim preacher vilified Christianity, denigrated the Bible and told us that Islam is the only true religion. The preacher told us to convert to Islam. When the preacher asked us, we didn’t deny about our Christian faith. I was so offended with her false teachings...

Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report. Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium. The paper suggested that Pakistan was the country most likely to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, saying Western officials were convinced there was an understanding between the countries to do so if the security situation in the Persian Gulf gets worse. Pakistan and...

A young Saudi journalist is facing calls for his execution after tweeting remarks about the Prophet Mohammed, and the kingdom's top clerics are demanding his trial after denouncing him as an "apostate." On the occasion of the Muslim prophet's birthday last week, 23-year-old Hamza Kashgari tweeted: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you." "I will not pray for you," he added. The controversial tweet sparked a frenzy of responses -- some 30,000, according to an online service that tracks tweets in the Arab world....

The Saudi grand mufti on Friday called social-networking website Twitter full of lies, a day after the site announced that it would begin restricting Tweets in specific countries. The news from the social media platform is renewing questions over how it will handle issues of free speech as it rapidly expands its global user base... Saudi Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said in his Friday sermon in Riyadh that Muslims should avoid being a “source or feeding” Twitter, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported. Twitter was a place “in which people are invited to throw charges between them, and to lie...

SNIPPET: "Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities." SNIPPET: "It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awalki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag." SNIPPET: "The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago."

Iranian naval ships docked on Saturday in the Saudi port city of Jeddah on a mission to project the Islamic republic's "power on the open seas," the Fars news agency reported. The supply ship Kharg and Shaid Qandi, a destroyer, docked in the Red Sea port in line with orders from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it quoted navy commander Admiral Habibollah Sayari as saying. "This mission aims to show the power of the Islamic republic of Iran on the open seas and to confront Iranophobia," he said, adding that the mission started several days ago and would last...

ICC Urges Saudi Arabia to Release the Prisoners Washington, D.C. (January 24, 2012) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Saudi Arabian officials strip searched 29 Christian women and assaulted six Christian men after arresting them for holding a prayer meeting at a private home in Jeddah. The prisoners are currently being held at Briman prison in Jeddah. “We feel humiliated because the security officials stripped searched us. They used the same glove to search several of us at the same time. Some of my friends are suffering from physical pain to their private parts due to the unsanitary...

A woman who defied a driving ban on female motorists in Saudi Arabia has died in a car crash. Another was hurt in the crash in the only country in the world where females are banned from getting behind the wheel. A police spokesman said that one of the women was killed instantly but the other had to go to hospital to be treated for her injuries. The woman's death comes months after Manal Al-Sherif was detained for being behind the wheel in the only country in the world where women are banned from driving They were in a four-wheel...

Saudi Typhoon storms ahead Posted 23 January 2012 Saudi Arabia has faced challenges introducing the Eurofighter Typhoon into service, not least in establishing local production – which has yet to start. But, as Jon Lake reports, despite this the Royal Saudi Air Force is pushing hard to adopt new capabilities and is believed to have been driving the pace of the development of new air-to-ground capabilities for the tranche 2 aeroplane. Many analysts believe that the pace of development for the phase 1 enhanced (P1E) programme of the Saudi Arabian Typhoons has been more rapid than might have been expected...

The US embassy in Riyadh revealed that 110,000 Saudi nationals applied for a visa to visit the US in 2011, an increase of 25,000 from the previous year. The embassy also revealed that 93 percent of these visa applications were approved, and 75 percent of visa application approvals were issued within one week. He also revealed that the US embassy is required to check all the required documentation, as well as interview the visa applicant, revealing that some visas are rejected due to the applicant’s failure to provide accurate answers at this stage. As for claims that some questions contained...

Saudi boy faces death after killing man who raped him A teenage Saudi boy is facing execution unless he pays seven million Saudi riyals ($1.8 million) to the family of a friend who he murdered after the victim raped him, a newspaper in the Gulf Kingdom reported on Thursday. A criminal court in the western Red Sea port of Jeddah sentenced the unnamed boy to death for stabbing his elder friend after the victim raped him at his house nearly nine months ago. The boy told court that he was at the victim’s home when he was asked to take...

Ever since the end of World War Two, the U.S. has come to regard Saudi Arabia as almost its exclusive oil producing enclave. In February 1945, after the Yalta Conference with Soviet General Secretary Iosif Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on his way home U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud met aboard the New Orleans-class heavy cruiser U.S.S. Quincy in the Suez Canal’s Great Bitter Lake. During the meeting, instigated by Roosevelt, he and Ibn Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security, including military assistance, training and...

Even as Western officials try to tamp-down the drums of war with Iran amid spiking oil prices, Saudi Arabia says it is ready to go to war to defend its interests. Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal told delegates at a Gulf Cooperation Council conference that Riyahd will use "all available options" to defend itself against Iranian "threats" that might trigger "unwanted military confrontation." Al-Faisal's comments to the conference in Bahrain late on Tuesday came after Tehran demanded Riyadh rethink its offer to make up for any oil lost to world markets as a result of threatened curbs on...

Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors should not raise their production to replace Iranian oil if the European Union goes ahead with a ban on Iranian crude imports, Iran's OPEC governor said on Sunday. The EU has agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil, while the United States has pressured Asian buyers to reduce imports to starve Iran of revenue for its disputed nuclear program.

  According to Saudi Arabian Law it is illegal for any non-Muslim to step foot in the cities of Mecca and Medina. In Medina however, non-Muslims are allowed to enter the Sheraton hotel on the outskirts of town. The Islamists allow a man made exception in their divinely inspired Shariah for the Sheraton Hotel Corporation, yet they make no exception for anyone else.   The equivalent of the Mecca/Medina Apartheid would be the Vatican issuing a decree excluding all non-Catholics/Christians from entering Vatican City, at threat of arrest and imprisonment. The Vatican however, welcomes all people without regard to race, religion,...

As most of America was preparing to flip its calendars last month, two defense contractors were hitting afterburners -- and blasting into the new year. Last week, the U.S. and Saudi Arabian governments finalized their contract for the sale of nearly $30 billion worth of fighter jets manufactured by Boeing (NYSE: BA ) . The deal includes an agreement that could lead to Saudi Arabia buying 84 F-15SAs and upgrades for another 70 F-15Ss. Of course, Boeing is not the only company that will benefit from this deal. General Electric (NYSE: GE ) will build two of its F110 engines...

A reliable Pentagon source confirmed that the U.S. is selling a huge $60 billion arms package to Serbia.The source spoke on condition of anonymity because minor details are still being hammered out. Afterwards there will be an official announcement made by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.The Pentagon source said the huge $60 billion arms package sale to Serbia is being made to counter the increasing dangerous militant Islamist threat in the region.The source noted Turkey's shift away from the secularism of Attaturk to fundamentalist Islam reflected by the ascension to power of Erdogan's AKP Islamist party.That is reflected in Turkey's closer ties with the Iranian regime and increasing hostility towards Israel and the West. The...

Iran plans to increase production at the Forouzan oilfield, which is shared with Saudi Arabia, by 40 percent by the end of the next calendar year (March 20, 2013), Iran Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) managing director said. "Some 100 kilometers seabed pipeline has been laid and related platform will be installed in the middle of the next year," Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh added. Forouzan development plan is aimed at extracting 300 million barrels of oil in a 25-year period. Iran will also sign a contract with foreign firms on developing its Esfandiar offshore oilfield, which is associated with Saudi Arabia, Zirakchiyanzadeh said....

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood will not recognize Israel under any circumstances and might put the peace treaty with the Jewish state up to a referendum, the movement's second in command told the Al-Hayat newspaper in an interview that was published Sunday. The announcement comes days before the final round in the first parliamentary elections in post-uprising Egypt. The Islamist movement has emerged as the biggest winner in polls, capturing nearly half of the seats so far. The Muslim Brotherhood "did not sign the peace accords," Rashad al-Bayoumi told the London-based newspaper. "We are allowed to ask the people or the elected...

Have you ever wondered why the Islamic world hates America Cultural Values? Ron Paul has a theory and it was quoted by the Des Moines Register, “I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.” I tend to disagree to an extent. I don’t think it is our presence in the region as much as it is our cultural differences. When you look at Islamic countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq you must understand...

AP sources: US to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia LOLITA C. BALDOR and MATTHEW LEE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is poised to announce the sale of nearly $30 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The deal will send 84 new fighter jets and upgrades for 70 more, for a total of $29.4 billion, according to the officials, who requested anonymity because the sale has not been made public. The agreement boosts the military strength of Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, at a time when...

China has made an audacious move to force Iran to sell it cheaper crude, disrupting the flow of more than 10 per cent of its exports by cutting January imports in half. In contrast to other top Asian buyers worried about what sanctions mean for crude flows from the world's fifth-largest exporter, China has shown no public qualms about the risk that a disruption will drive up the cost of oil. The world's second-largest crude importer has chosen its moment for hard bargaining. Iran is facing the threat of fresh sanctions from the US and European Union over its nuclear...

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that the Ethiopian Christians who were arrested seven days ago in Saudi Arabia for holding a prayer meeting are now being charged by Saudi officials with mixing with the opposite sex. In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for men and women (non-family) to be in the same room together. The six men and 29 women were holding a weekly prayer meeting on December 15 when the Saudi police arrested them. Christian leaders say that the accusation of "mixing with the opposite sex" is only an excuse and believe that the Christians were arrested for...

The above coin, which I photographed in its plastic container, was sent to me by my daughter who works in Saudi Arabia. She says that this is what Saudis give to each other as gifts. I know some Freepers have lived and worked in Saudi Arabia and may know more about this coin. I believe the inscription says "There is but one God and Allah is his name"

Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani inaugurated on Friday the Imam Imam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab Mosque in Doha. During the opening, Sheikh Hamad reaffirmed his commitment to spare no efforts to carry the message and spread the teachings of Islam in the whole world, noting that the Muslim nation is now in need of renewal and inspiration of the experience of Wahhab s da wah (call) while keeping pace with the era and its developments. The inauguration started with a recitation of verses from the Holy Qur an followed by the screening of a documentary on the mosque....

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia formally called for the formation of a Gulf Union on a backdrop of regional unrest and growing tensions with rival Iran. "I ask today that we move from a phase of cooperation to a phase of union within a single entity," Abdullah said during his address at the opening session of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council conference in Riyadh. "You must realise that our security and stability are threatened and we need to live up to our responsibilities," said King Abdullah. "Our summit opens in the shadow of challenges that require vigilance and a united...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor in some of the world's top companies, on Monday unveiled a $300 million stake purchase in fast-growing microblogging site Twitter, gaining another foothold in the global media industry. Alwaleed, a nephew of the Saudi king with a personal net worth estimated by Forbes magazine in March to be just below $20 billion, already owns a 7-percent stake in News Corp and has unveiled plans to start a cable news channel. The Twitter stake, bought jointly by Alwaleed and his Kingdom Holding Co investment firm, resulted from "months of negotiations,"...

RIYADH (Zawya Dow Jones) -- Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his Kingdom Holding Co. Monday announced their purchase of a $300 million stake in Twitter, calling it a strategic investment in a company they said is remaking the media landscape. The Twitter purchase represents the prince's drive "to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact," an emailed statement from Kingdom Holding quoted the Saudi prince as saying. Prince Alwaleed, rated by Arabian Business magazine as the Arab world's richest man, with more than $21 billion in wealth in 2011, had been cited in news reports since October...

Three human rights votes were taken Monday morning at the UN, to condemn the practices of Syria, North Korea and Iran... Syria drew the most condemnations, 133, with DPRK second at 123 and the Iran vote decidedly more mixed: 89 condemning, 30 supporting and 64 abstaining. Iran might say there were more not condemning, including abstentions, than condemning. Sudan, interestingly, voted to condemn Syria, but not Iran or North Korea. Skeptics attribute Khartoum's anti-Assad vote to an attempt to "go mainstream," or at least be taken off the US state sponsor of terrorism list. Qatar, meanwhile, seemed to some to...

Over 13,000 camels to join beauty pageantry More than 13,000 camels from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf Arab countries will be herded inside a massive well-built enclosure in the Kingdom for the region’s largest camel beauty contest, starting on Sunday. Organisers said 13,678 male and female Arabian camels will take part in the event, which will attract 280 camel owners from Saudi Arabia, 22 from Kuwait, 17 from Qatar and five from the UAE. The contest will be held in North Saudi Arabia and will last 31 days, during which three winners will be picked by a committee...

A large Iranian delegation led by Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi visited Riyadh Monday, Dec. 12 and put a proposition before Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz: Why not bury the Saudi royal house's historic feud with the ayatollahs of Tehran and form an anti-US and anti-Zionist pact for leading the Middle East? The Iranians boasted that after the seizure of America's top secret drone technology by a successful cyber attack they must now be accepted as the superpower of the region. Prince Nayef agreed to receive the delegation following a request from the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei....

A large Iranian delegation led by Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi visited Riyadh Monday, Dec. 12 and put a proposition before Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz: Why not bury the Saudi royal house's historic feud with the ayatollahs of Tehran and form an anti-US and anti-Zionist pact for leading the Middle East? The Iranians boasted that after the seizure of America's top secret drone technology by a successful cyber attack they must now be accepted as the superpower of the region. Prince Nayef agreed to receive the delegation following a request from the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei....

A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing "witchcraft and sorcery," according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year. The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the northern Saudi province of al-Jawf on Monday. A source close to the Saudi religious police told Arab newspaper al Hayat that authorities who searched Nassar's home found a book about witchcraft, 35 veils and glass bottles full of "an unknown liquid used for sorcery" among her possessions. According to reports, authorities said Nassar claimed to be a healer and would sell...

...These new developments caught Hamas unprepared. Not only is there a need to find new accommodations for Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal and company, but there is also a political price: the need to decrease terror and transform itself from a pro-Iranian/Syrian "muqawama" ("resistance") movement into a typical political party of the Muslim Brotherhood-type that are now in the process of taking control in the Arab world... ...they prefer engagement with Cairo because the prospects of Muslim Brotherhood dominance are much more advanced in Egypt and the close vicinity to Gaza... The new prime minister of Jordan, Judge Awn Khasawneh,...

Man could receive death penalty for adultery with ex-wife Jeddah- Under strict sharia law a Saudi man could be stoned to death for committing adultery with his ex-wife, who was unaware he had divorced her. A Saudi woman has demanded that her ex-husband receive the strictest punishment under sharia law, for committing adultery with her. In a bizarre tale the Saudi man divorced his wife without letting her know, yet continued to have sex with her. The woman had no inkling they were no longer man and wife. Emirates 247 reported that four months after divorcing his wife, the man...

So much for peace in the Middle East. On 5 December Prince bin Turki al Faisal, speaking at the “The Gulf and the Globe” conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh urged the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to become a powerful regional bloc by establishing a unified armed force and defense structure. While bin Turki’s call for the GCC to pool its military resources is nothing new, his idea of supporting Gulf countries acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) if Israel and Iran do not constrain their nuclear programs represents the edge of a precipitously slippery slope. Bin Turki told...

U.S. military personnel last week inspected bases in Saudi Arabia that could be used as part of a future confrontation with Iran, according to an informed Middle East security official speaking to me today. Iran, too, may be preparing its partners for war. Ahmed Jabari, the leader of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas so-called military wing, visited Iran and Syria last week for consultations on how to respond if Iran or Syria are attacked, the same security official said.

SYDNEY (AP) — An Australian man has been sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in a Saudi Arabian jail after being convicted of blasphemy, officials said Wednesday. The 45-year-old man, identified by family members as Mansor Almaribe of southern Victoria state, was detained in the holy city of Medina last month while making the Muslim pilgrimage of hajj. Family members told Australian media that Saudi officials accused him of insulting the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, a violation of Saudi Arabia's strict blasphemy laws.

Situations may be precarious at times but truly this is merely a lack of prayer as preparation for you are my houses of preparation of my will. So know my will by the preparation of your hearts before me for I AM The LIGHT of your path and way in Me ! John 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. John 8:12 New International Version (NIV) Dispute Over Jesus’ Testimony 12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk...

Don't laugh. That wouldn't be respectful. And you know how the Saudis, and Islamic supremacists in general, are about respect. Remember also, as Pamela Geller reminds us often, that Obama has assured the Islamic world that we will respect Islam -- and also therefore Islamic law. But the best way to gain respect is to be respectable. This one, on the other hand, made me wonder if maybe someone like John Cleese or Eric Idle had gotten a job writing material for the Muslim scholars at the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council. Sharia Alert from the Kingdom...

CAIN’S VISION FOR FOREIGN POLICY & NATIONAL SECURITY The Americas Mexico: Friend and Partner Mexico is a friend in need. Our southern neighbor is struggling with drug-related violence that has claimed an estimated 40,000 lives over the past several years. By standing with Mexico now to help it solve its increasingly severe economic and security problems, we will help solve the problem of illegal immigration at home. Some 40% of Mexicans believe Mexico is a failed state. This helps explain why so many are seeking to emigrate. With declining oil reserves, a looming water shortage in Mexico City, and youth...

Saudi religious police HQ targeted by sex maniacs Tried to create a sex video right in front of the police headquarter signboard By  Staff Published Sunday, November 27, 2011 Three Saudi men parked their car close to the headquarters of the Gulf Kingdom’s feared religious police late night, got out and started having sex with a woman accompanying them just in front of the massive police signboard. They were filming themselves with the aim publicising the shot to defame the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the most influential law enforcement authority in the Muslim nation....