KSA’s King Abdullah slams extremism in address marking start of Ramadan

[Al Bhatti]

June 29, 2014

Saudi’s King Abdullah slams extremism in address marking start of Ramadan

Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday sharply criticised religious extremists, vowing not to let “a handful of terrorists ... terrify Muslims”, in a speech marking the start of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Islam is “religion of unity, fraternity and mutual support” but some people “lured in by false calls ... are confusing reform with terrorism”, the monarch said, in comments carried by state news agency SPA.

“Their goal is to sow discord among Muslims,” he said in an apparent reference to insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The powerful jihadist group has spearheaded an offensive by Sunni militants in Iraq since June 9, wresting control of northern cities and capturing vast swathes of territory.

ISIL operates in both Syria and Iraq and aims to establish an Islamic state straddling the border of those two countries, but their lightning advance in Iraq also poses a threat to Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The ultraconservative Sunni Gulf kingdom — home to Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest sites — shares an 814-kilometre (505-mile) border with Iraq.

“We will not allow a handful of terrorists, using Islam for personal aims, to terrify Muslims or undermine our country and its inhabitants,” Abdullah said.

“We are continuing, with God’s help, to face and tackle this scourge,” he said.

The Saudi monarch also wished Muslims “security, prosperity and stability” over Ramadan, which began in most countries on Sunday.

During Ramadan, which is sacred to Muslims because it is during that month that tradition says the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, believers abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex from dawn until sunset.

Saudi's King Abdullah slams extremism in speech to mark first day of Ramadan | The National

 

[Al Bhatti]

29 June 2014

Saudi king, in Ramadan message, vows to crush terrorists

King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to protect the country against potential “terrorist threats” resulting from turmoil in neighbouring Iraq.

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, in a Ramadan message on Saturday, vowed to crush militants threatening the kingdom, the state news agency reported, saying the world’s top oil exporter would not tolerate “a band of terrorists”.

The remarks came two days after King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to protect the country against potential “terrorist threats” resulting from turmoil in neighbouring Iraq, where militants have captured some cities from the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.

“We will not let a band of terrorists who have taken religion as a disguise behind which they hide private interests to terrorise the protected Muslims, to touch our homeland or any of its sons or its protected residents,” King Abdullah said in a message at the start of Ramadan.

Saudi Arabia crushed Al Qaeda after the militant group began a campaign of bombings and attacks on vital installations and expatriate compounds in the kingdom.

The US-allied kingdom has been rattled by a lightning advance through Iraq by Sunni militants spearheaded by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) - aided by other militants, tribal leaders and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party - which seized swathes of the country this month.

Saudi Arabia shares an 800-km border with Iraq.

Saudi king, in Ramadan message, vows to crush terrorists - Khaleej Times

 

[al-Hasani]

Northern border is secure

BULWARK AGAINST ENEMY: Even the slightest of movements on the border are picked up by surveillance cameras. (AN photo)​

JEDDAH: MD AL-SULAMI

Published — Monday 30 June 2014

Last update 30 June 2014 1:05 am

The order of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to take necessary measures to protect the Kingdom and its people brings to mind the completed security fence project on the northern border.
The king’s order came after a meeting of the National Security Council, chaired by the king, to discuss the current events in the region especially in Iraq and their ramifications in the Kingdom.
Many citizens expressed their appreciation for the project. They wrote on social media websites that the idea of this fence is very smart and has shown its effectiveness during the current unrest in Iraq.
Others said this project has already contributed to protecting the Kingdom’s security and guarding its territory from any threats. They added that this fence contributed to raising the level of security among citizens and left them with a good impression of the government of the custodian of the Two Holy Mosque and the Ministry of the Interior in particular.
Some comments praised the government’s projects and described them as proactive, planned in advance to protect the Kingdom and its citizens.
The northern border security fence project is one of the biggest in the Kingdom with its cost exceeding $3.4 billion. It has enabled the border guards to take advantage of the latest technology solutions consisting of border control systems, alarm systems and command and control systems.
The fence has the latest communication and security monitoring systems which help support border patrol in discharging their duties.
These technologies help prevent infiltration or smuggling of drugs and weapons and ensure that the Kingdom’s areas are not used as a station for intercontinental crimes.
The security fence has developed communication devices supported with sophisticated surveillance cameras, thermal cameras, mobile cameras with the patrols in addition to radars and sensing devices distributed at border posts. Control rooms at border posts are linked with each other through advanced communication devices that monitor all movement along the border.
These methods and systems allow for an exchange information and data between the command and control rooms in high capacities. Videos from surveillance cameras located on the border can be transformed through these means, as well as all signals monitored by remote sensors.
The data are then circulated among border authorities to arrange for the activities of border patrol to cope with any emergency. Such a system raises the efficiency of the Saudi border patrols and enhances their control of the border to prevent smuggling of drugs, weapons and wanted individuals, and reduce illegal immigration.
The security fence also includes thirty five constant monitoring towers in addition to moving towers erected at certain points called the blind points which are located in some of the valleys and mountains.
Border patrol is responsible for protecting land and marine borders as well as ports from smugglers. They also report any unusual movement on the border, and work on search rescue operations.
Mohammed Saad Al-Ghamdi, spokesman for border patrol, asserted that Saudi borders are safe, adding that land and marine patrols are doing their job around the clock. The northern border posts did not register any case of smuggling in the recent past.

Northern border is secure | Arab News — Saudi Arabia News, Middle East News, Opinion, Economy and more.

@1000

As you can see then there is small chance of any spillover from the Iraqi border or movements into Iraq or from Iraq as I told. It's a VERY well-guided border despite being nearly 1.000 km long and full of desert, valleys, mountainous, hilly and remote areas.

That have not taken place since 2003 either for a reason.

 

[1000]

​

@1000

As you can see then there is small chance of any spillover from the Iraqi border or movements into Iraq or from Iraq as I told. It's a VERY well-guided border despite being nearly 1.000 km long and full of desert, valleys, mountainous, hilly and remote areas.

That have not taken place since 2003 either for a reason.

I haven't said that the danger is external.
The danger is from within, internal.

 

[al-Hasani]

I haven't said that the danger is external.
The danger is from within, internal.

Aha. Same with the internal danger. Also a real expansion would need ISIS moving into KSA from Syria and Iraq which can't happen.

A few supporters here and there cannot even make 10% of the trouble a full-scaled "invasion" from ISIS could have done would the border be fully open.

The only state, as I wrote, that is in any remote "danger" is Jordan. Not sure about their border with Iraq After all it's not that long.

 

[1000]

Aha. Same with the internal danger. Also a real expansion would need ISIS moving into KSA from Syria and Iraq.

Expansion is not a first phase method by those terrorists.
First phase is small hit & run attacks, ( suicide ) bombings.

Ask @Aeronaut he has the same thoughts on this as people will assume I am not neutral in this.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

“We will not allow a handful of terrorists, using Islam for personal aims, to terrify Muslims or undermine our country and its inhabitants,” Abdullah said.
“We are continuing, with God’s help, to face and tackle this scourge,” he said.
The Saudi monarch also wished Muslims “security, prosperity and stability” over Ramadan, which began in most countries on Sunday.

Kink Kullah - Lets follow Islam. Lets resign from the kink throne. Let a capable person rule. When you can't implement Islam on yourself...you think you can fool Muslims for so long?

Your days are over. Your handlers will back stab you.

I ASK - DID ANY IMAM E KABA RESIGN over Amrikan/Saudi nexus of killing people? Did any?

Who pays for Imam E Kaba? My lord Arab kink.

Its all sham. Islam says - Not let any corrupt person rule over you. Not even the custodians of Holy Mosques.

This Saudi/Imam scam is going to end.

Real Islam - Islam based on scientific research. Islam based on equality. Islam based on rights. That Islam will emerge.

Gone are the days of using religion as a tool. Kinks.

 

[notgoodenough]

Nobody believes this two faced despot. The sauds made their bed, now they must sleep in it. The sooner the better

 

[Cheetah786]

NEW YORK – One would think the neoconservatives who engineered the Iraq War – the worst disaster for the United States since Vietnam – would never emerge from hiding.

Not so. With dazzling chutzpah, former Vice President Dick Cheney, the real power in the Bush administration, just claimed President Barack Obama was responsible for the growing mess in Iraq.

Obama is a wimp allowing America’s foes to run rampant across the Mideast and Eastern Europe, growled Cheney. He wants US troops to reoccupy Iraq, and maybe Syria. Cheney’s blustering was applauded by another over-the-hill dotard, Republican party leader Sen. John McCain.

Out from the Washington woodwork crept a swarm of neoconservatives. They joined Cheney in blasting Obama over Iraq and calling for more wars against the Muslim world.

It’s a pity Americans don’t call these war-drum beaters by their proper name. In Britain, they would be known as Imperialists and Empire Loyalists. The Republican Party has in effect become the American Imperialist Party allied to the ardently pro-Israel neoconservatives.

Both parties want to see the American Global Empire enforced and expanded. So wrote Dick Cheney in a op-ed piece trumpeted by the house organ of the hard right, the Wall Street Journal, a violent diatribe against Obama that would have made Mussolini blush.

Now, President Obama faces a grave decision. As Baghdad’s army wavers before Sunni assaults, he is deploying limited US airpower and 300 US troops to blunt the jihadist/Ba’athist advance. Besides killing many civilians, air attacks will outrage Saudi Arabia and much of the Sunni Muslim world. Obama knows that America must not be seen as the champion of Iraq’s Shia against the Sunni minority.

The Saudis are openly warning Obama not to intervene in Iraq. Meanwhile, Iran is beginning to send ground forces into Iraq, to the fury of Saudi Arabia and Israel. Cooperation between Washington and Tehran over Iraq is likely to have a positive effect on US-Iranian nuclear negotiations.

So Obama is hedging his bets by sending the token 300 US Special Forces to Baghdad as ‘advisors,’ as if Iraq, which had been at war since 1980, needed more training or advice. Air and/or drone strikes are due any minutes.

What Obama is really doing is sending ‘white’ officers to stiffen the spines of wavering native troops.

Interestingly, Obama finds himself in the same type of imperial dilemma faced by Britain’s PM Gladstone in 1885. In that year, Britain’s imperial general Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon went to Khartoum, Sudan, to lead the fight against Islamic jihadists known as Dervishes. Their leader, Mohammed Ahmed, aka the Mahdi, became a paramount Victorian villain akin to our era’s Osama bin Laden.

Gordon was trying to shame Gladstone into sending a British Army up the Nile to relieve Khartoum. Like Obama, Gladstone wanted to avoid imperial adventures but was eventually forced by jingoistic public outcry to send an army to Sudan, though not before Gordon was killed and became a Victorian Christian martyr. The fall of Khartoum to the Dervishes was the 9/11 of the Victorian Age.

What’s really at stake here is oil. Some 8,000 jihadists and resurgent Ba’ath Party militants are no threat to the US, as Obama claims. They are, however, a dire threat to Big Oil.

Saddam Hussein nationalized Iraq’s oil and kicked out its foreign owners. As soon as he was deposed, the US and other foreign oil firms moved back in to pump Iraq’s black gold. As Dick Cheney said, Iraq was invaded for the sake of “Israel and oil.”

Meanwhile, the White House is fast yanking the carpet out from under the wretched Nouri al-Maliki’s feet, all but warning him to quit or else. Shia generals are already planning how to redecorate Maliki’s office. Fresh from picking a new government in Kiev, the US is now deep into Iraqi king-making.

Remember Henry Kissinger’s pithy quip, “it’s more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.”

Maliki will be the next useless puppet to be swept aside by Uncle Sam. Whichever CIA “asset” that takes power in Kabul will face a similar threat. Both Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s armies are paid to wear uniforms, not to actually fight.

Meanwhile, few Americans are yet aware that the Iraq War cost over $1 trillion – financed by loans from China and Japan. – that our grandchildren will be paying.

Those neocons baying for war have not so far offered to make personal contributions to a greater war effort. Few will recall that Vietnam began with small numbers of US “advisors.”

copyright Eric S. Margolis

 

[Kompromat]

Aha. Same with the internal danger. Also a real expansion would need ISIS moving into KSA from Syria and Iraq which can't happen.

A few supporters here and there cannot even make 10% of the trouble a full-scaled "invasion" from ISIS could have done would the border be fully open.

The only state, as I wrote, that is in any remote "danger" is Jordan. Not sure about their border with Iraq After all it's not that long.

If you are thinking that ISIS will march down with Tanks and armor on KSA, you are extremely - extremely naive. Having studied the terrorist operational tactics for the past many years, i can project that IF the ISIS has a plan to try and attack KSA, they are already working on it. They will not come from the border, they will come from within Saudi Arabia to wreak havoc.

Unlike many, i do not think that ISIS is supported by KSA, not because KSA hasn't funded extremists in the past or now but due to the simple fact that KSA has a policy to not fund extremist groups in countries which share a border with KSA and can therefore pose a threat to the Kingdom.

KSA's best hope in this regard, is not its Military but its Intelligence services.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

If you are thinking that ISIS will march down with Tanks and armor on KSA, you are extremely - extremely naive. Having studied the terrorist operational tactics for the past many years, i can project that IF the ISIS has a plan to try and attack KSA, they are already working on it. They will not come from the border, they will come from within Saudi Arabia to wreak havoc.

Unlike many, i do not think that ISIS is supported by KSA, not because KSA hasn't funded extremists in the past or now but due to the simple fact that KSA has a policy to not fund extremist groups in countries which share a border with KSA and can therefore pose a threat to the Kingdom.

KSA's best hope in this regard, is not its Military but its Intelligence services.

The Saudis, Turks, and many other countries are adopting this kind of policy to deal with the crisis taking place in Iraq.

 

[Jihad_]

KSA's best hope in this regard, is not its Military but its Intelligence services.

You think IS isn't allready there?

 

[Kompromat]

You think IS isn't allready there?

They are, which is why the time to track down and destroy ISIS's sleeper cells in KSA is NOW!

The Saudis, Turks, and many other countries are adopting this kind of policy to deal with the crisis taking place in Iraq.

They are already inside KSA. This is time to smash them before their capability grows to a 'projection' level.

 

[Jihad_]

They are, which is why the time to track down and destroy ISIS's sleeper cells in KSA is NOW!

I mean in the intelligence services? And militairy?

 

[Kompromat]

I mean in the intelligence services? And militairy?

It is not very hard to do vetting. Pakistan has already done it a few years back when MI was cracking down on servicemen sympathetic to terrorist organizations and Hizb Tahrir etc. If the Saudis want to prevent this rather than fighting it in their streets, they need to scan and eradicate them from positions of power as well as coming down to dismantle urban sleeper cells and those individuals who are funding them in Iraq secretly.