Free Republic

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has pulled off in Mecca what many had thought unlikely -- getting 20 or so disparate Arab nations to unite in a common position against Iran. ... In middle-of-night, back-to-back summits at Islam's holiest of sites, the aging but still-attentive Saudi monarch got a double endorsement of his claims that Iran is destabilizing the Middle East and a backing of his call for "the international community to shoulder its responsibility. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and 21 Arab League nations present called for Iran to stop "interfering in the internal affairs" of its neighbors and...

Since taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump has achieved more for Israel and the Jewish people than any other president before him. Since 1948, the State of Israel has seen friendly presidents of the United States as well as unfriendly, but today Israel’s greatest friend sits in the White House. Since taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump has achieved more for Israel and the Jewish people than any other president before him, even rivaling Harry Truman, who voted in favor of and later recognized the Jewish state. The list of accomplishments President Trump and his administration have produced...

[GCC=Gulf Cooperation Council] Makkah: The GCC Summit in Makkah has condemned the recent sabotage operations, which targeted four tankers in UAE’s regional waters and drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. The GCC leaders discussed the exceptional circumstances and dangerous challenges the region is undergoing following the recent attacks on the UAE and Saudi Arabia and their ramifications and direct threat to the regional security and peace, to freedom of global marine navigation and trade as well as to world oil markets as a result of attempts by some countries to undermine security and stability of the region, support terrorism and...

Just ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran set to snap back on Monday targeting primarily the energy, shipbuilding, shipping, and banking sectors, Iran’s most prominent conservative cleric has announced that if oil exports are halted, Saudi tankers will be confiscated and Gulf countries attacked. Powerful Shia cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda is the Friday Prayer leader in Mashhad, considered Iran’s spiritual capital and among the holiest places in Shia Islam, and sits on the government’s “Assembly of Experts” but has no formal government role or decision-making ability. However, he’s a powerful leader and chief spiritual force behind Iran’s conservative faction who...

As Iran girds for possible war with the United States, President Trump may turn out to be the best friend it has. Despite the saber-rattling of senior aides and Trump’s own tweets, when push has come to shove over the past two years, the president has repeatedly backed away from the threatened use of military force. Whether the target has been North Korea, with which warnings of “fire and fury” have become little more than an exchange of “beautiful” letters between Trump and Kim Jong Un, or Venezuela, where the threat of “all options” has failed to upset the status...

President Donald Trump during a Saturday rally in Wisconsin described a phone call with the leader of Saudi Arabia in which he demanded more money from the oil-rich nation. “Look, Saudi Arabia, very rich country, we defend them, we subsidize Saudi Arabia. They have nothing but cash, right? We subsidize them. And they buy a lot from us, $450 billion they bought,” Trump began. “You know, You had people wanting to cut off Saudi Arabia. They bought $450 billion. I don’t want to lose ‘em! But the military, we subsidize Saudi Arabia!” “I called the King,” he continued. “I like...

Jeddah: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud called for an emergency meeting of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and leaders of Arab League countries to discuss the security of the region and measures to enhance it, according to a Saudi Press Agency (SPA) report late on Saturday. The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said King Salman had invited Gulf leaders and Arab states to two emergency summits in Mecca on May 30 to discuss recent "aggressions and their consequences" in the region. The extraordinary meeting has been called following attack on the commercial maritime ships in the territorial...

RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is taking managerial control of Saudi Binladin Group and discussing a possible transfer of some of the giant construction group’s assets to the state while its chairman and other family members are in detention, sources told Reuters. Binladin, which had over 100,000 employees at its height, is the biggest builder in the country and important to Riyadh’s plans for large real estate, industrial and tourism projects to help diversify the economy beyond oil. However, the group has been hurt financially in the past couple of years by a slump in the construction industry and a...

In this Dec. 14, 2017 file photo, the remains of an Iranian Qasef-1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is seen during a press briefing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington. Image Credit: AP Dubai: Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih said on Tuesday that two oil pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies. Falih condemned the attacks in a statment saying: "The latest acts of terrorism and sabotage in the Arabian Gulf... not only target the Kingdom but also the security of oil supplies...

Dubai: Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih said on Tuesday that two oil pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies. Falih condemned the attacks in a statment saying: "The latest acts of terrorism and sabotage in the Arabian Gulf... not only target the Kingdom but also the security of oil supplies to the world and the global economy." "These attacks prove again that it is important for us to face terrorist entities, including the Houthi militias in Yemen that are backed by Iran,"...

Saudi Araba said drones attacked one of its oil pipelines as other assaults targeted energy infrastructure elsewhere in the kingdom on Tuesday, shortly after Yemen’s rebels claimed a coordinated drone attack on the Sunni power. The assaults marked the latest incidents challenging Mideast security after the alleged sabotage of oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates earlier this week amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom Saudi Arabia has been fighting against since March 2015, said they launched a series of drone attacks on the kingdom, across the border from Yemen. […]...

Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that two of its oil tankers suffered “significant damage” from sabotage attacks off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) near the Strait of Hormuz. The attacks reportedly also damaged two ships from other nations, one of them registered to Norway. The Saudis and Emiratis did not name any suspects but their implications about the motive suggested a link to Iran. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the sabotage was intended to “undermine the freedom of maritime navigation, and the security of oil supplies to consumers all over the world.” The minister’s statement stressed...

Most news consumers understand that media, in general, plays favorites. They cheer on and protect Designated Heroes, and with seemingly boundless energy relish every opportunity to assail Designated Villains. We’ve long known, from polling and other quantifiable metrics, that journalists have very pronounced political biases. Even as journalists often indignantly tout the objectivity of their work product and defend the credibility of others in their profession, the sorry results stand for themselves. It’s no longer controversial—other than in the most surreal, eye-rolling conversations with committed left-wing partisans—to say the American media leans overwhelmingly left and has a strong preference for...

ohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’’s crown prince, on Friday defended China’s use of concentration camps for Muslims, saying it was Beijing’s “right”. "China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremisation work for its national security,” Prince Mohammed, who has been in China signing multi-million trade deals much to the annoyance of his Western allies, was quoted as saying on Chinese state television. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, told the crown prince the two countries must strengthen international cooperation on de-radicalisation to “prevent the infiltration and spread of extremist thinking”. China has detained an estimated one million Uighur Muslims in...

There have been some intriguing developments related to Syria that are now being reported in the wake of President Trump’s announcement of the withdrawal of U.S. troops. To begin with, it appears that the Kurds will be getting support from America’s regional allies. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent military forces to areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG group in north-east Syria, Turkey’s Yenisafak newspaper reported. Furthermore, a Jordanian official reports that Russian forces currently in Syria will take action to restrain Hezbollah and Iranian activity there, according to understandings reached by the U.S., Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia...

At the height of the media storm over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, otherwise known as MBS, met with a visiting delegation of evangelical Christians from the U.S. for two hours. One of the Saudi attendees was the General Secretary of the Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL), Dr. Mohammad Al-‘Issa. The MWL was a major engine for the propagation and spread of Wahabist jihad throughout the Western world since it was formed by the Saudi regime in the 1960s. The MWL founded the...

From the window of a helicopter crossing the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the Emirati military base looms into view — an expanse of clay-coloured barracks guarded by US Patriot missile systems. This used to be a quiet corner of Yemen, its palm-fringed beaches reaching for miles. Now Emirati forces have made it a showcase of increasing military might. Once best known for holiday beaches and a lackadaisical approach to tax regulation, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have become one of the most powerful and interventionist forces in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Oman last week came as a surprise to the Palestinians, who denounced it as a form of "normalization" with Israel. Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah said on Saturday they did not know if PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who also visited Oman last week, knew in advance about Netanyahu's visit to the country's port capital of Muscat. A senior adviser to Abbas would neither confirm nor deny reports to the effect that Oman and its leader, Sultan Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said, were acting as mediators between Israel and the Palestinians in a bid...

A new discovery off the coast of Bahrain is estimated to contain at least 80 billion barrels of tight oil, the kingdom's biggest ever find, its oil minister said on Wednesday. Independent appraisals by U.S.-based oil consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton and oilfield services company Halliburton had confirmed Bahrain's find of "highly significant quantities of oil in place ... with tight oil amounting to at least 80 billion barrels, and deep gas reserves in the region of 10-20 trillion cubic feet," Oil Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa said. Russia's entire oil reserve is 80 billion barrels. Tight oil is a...

The tiny Gulf nation of Qatar has launched a massive buildup of air power for an unclear purpose. The latest development in this saga came in September, when British Defense Secretary of Defense Michael Fallon and Qatari Defense Secretary Khalid bin Mohammed al Attiyah signed a Letter of Intent for Doha to purchase twenty-four Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft from London. That came on the heels of Qatar announcing a deal to purchase thirty-six Boeing F-15 Qatar Advanced-variant Eagles from the United States for a reported $12 billion. And in 2015, Qatar signed a $7.5 billion deal with France to purchase twenty-four...