Source-Miami Herald.com
Death penalty trial of five 9/11 suspects to resume at Guantanamo
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- The Pentagon on Wednesday cleared the way for a death penalty trial against five Guantanamo Bay captives charged with engineering the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, who is in charge of military commissions, signed off on the capital trial against alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 46, and four accused co-conspirators.
The men face charges of terrorism, hijacking aircraft, conspiracy and murder in violation of the law of war, among other charges, in the system set up by President George W. Bush within months of the attack, and then modified by President Barack Obama in 2009.
If convicted, they could be sentenced to death using a method to be decided by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta or his successor.
The charges accuse the five of organizing the attacks - including funding and training the 19 men who hijacked four commercial airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., killing 2,976 people.
The lead trial attorneys are retired Army Col. Robert Swann and federal prosecutor Edward Ryan - the same two men designated by the Bush administration to prosecute the case.
Obama halted the previous trial and Attorney General Eric Holder was initially determined to prosecute the five in Manhattan, not far from the site of the World Trade Center. But Holder reversed course a year ago after members of Congress raised a variety of protests - arguing that a federal prosecution would put an even larger al-Qaida bull's-eye on New York, would snarl traffic or would risk acquittal if a civilian judge or jury concluded that the evidence against them was obtained through torture.
Pentagon prosecutors have been preparing their case since then.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the decision to go forward with the trial at Guantanamo did not diminish Obama's desire to close the detention center there.
"There have obviously been obstacles in achieving that. But he remains committed to doing that," said Carney. "In the meantime, we have to ensure that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others who are accused of these heinous crimes are brought to justice. And a procedure is now under way to ensure that that happens."
The decision drew a rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union, which has funded some of the 9/11 defense lawyers.
The Obama administration "is making a terrible mistake by prosecuting the most important terrorism trials of our time in a second-tier system of justice," said Anthony Romero, the group's executive director. He said the war court was "set up to achieve easy convictions and hide the reality of torture, not to provide a fair trial."
"Whatever verdict comes out of the Guantanamo military commissions will be tainted by an unfair process and the politics that wrongly pulled these cases from federal courts, which have safely and successfully handled hundreds of terrorism trials," he said.
All five were interrogated by the CIA in secret overseas prisons - Mohammed was water-boarded 183 times, according to declassified CIA documents - before their 2006 transfer to Guantanamo. Once in Cuba, he bragged to a panel of U.S. military officers that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z."
The chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, has said that by law no evidence derived through torture can be used at a Guantanamo trial.
MacDonald signed the 123-page charge sheet alleging the five men engaged in a years-long conspiracy that trained the 9/11 hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, funded them in wire transfers from Persian Gulf nations and dispatched some of them to the United States from Germany. It will be up to an 11-member team of U.S. prosecutors to prove it to a military jury of a dozen or more members.
But first, the military has to present the charges at the remote prison at the U.S. base in southeast Cuba, assign a judge to the case and give the defendants a formal appearance at the war court compound, Camp Justice, probably in May. Months of pretrial challenges, including wrangling over defense resources and whether the men are competent to defend themselves, are likely to follow.
The other four men facing the death penalty charges in the joint trial are Waleed bin Attash, 33, a Yemeni; Ramzi Binalshibh, 39, a Yemeni; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, 43, a Saudi; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, 34, a Pakistani who is Mohammed's nephew and also known as Ammar al Baluchi.
The Pentagon's war court witness advocate, Karen Loftus, sent an email to Sept. 11 victims' families Wednesday advising them of the development. Some survivors and victims of the 9/11 attacks, selected through a lottery, will be invited to watch the proceedings at Guantanamo. Most will be directed to remote viewing sites being set up in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Maryland that will show closed-circuit broadcasts of the proceedings.
The broadcasts are on a 40-second delay in case someone in court divulges classified information.
Loftus also described the military jury that will hear the mass murder trial as "a panel of at least 12 members, whose function is analogous to jurors in a federal or state court. The case was also referred to as a joint trial, meaning that all five of the accused will be tried together, unless the military judge later determines that any or all of the accused should be tried separately."
A Pentagon-paid defense lawyer for Ali, accused of wiring money to the 9/11 hijackers, has argued his client should not face a capital trial because he isn't alleged to have killed or plotted to kill anyone.
"Mr. Ali would not be eligible for the death penalty if this case were tried in federal court," said attorney James Connell. "This attempt to expand the reach of the death penalty to people who neither killed nor planned to kill is another example of the second-class justice of the military commissions."
Chief prosecutor Martins has assigned himself to an 11-lawyer prosecution team that includes Justice Department lawyers Joanna Baltes, Jeffrey Groharing and Clayton Trivett as deputy trial counsels to Ryan and Swann. Trivett, a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve, and Groharing, a lieutenant colonel in the Marines, had also worked on the 9/11 prosecution during the Bush years.
(Rosenberg reports for The Miami Herald.)
Death penalty trial of five 9/11 suspects to resume at Guantanamo
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- The Pentagon on Wednesday cleared the way for a death penalty trial against five Guantanamo Bay captives charged with engineering the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, who is in charge of military commissions, signed off on the capital trial against alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 46, and four accused co-conspirators.
The men face charges of terrorism, hijacking aircraft, conspiracy and murder in violation of the law of war, among other charges, in the system set up by President George W. Bush within months of the attack, and then modified by President Barack Obama in 2009.
If convicted, they could be sentenced to death using a method to be decided by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta or his successor.
The charges accuse the five of organizing the attacks - including funding and training the 19 men who hijacked four commercial airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., killing 2,976 people.
The lead trial attorneys are retired Army Col. Robert Swann and federal prosecutor Edward Ryan - the same two men designated by the Bush administration to prosecute the case.
Obama halted the previous trial and Attorney General Eric Holder was initially determined to prosecute the five in Manhattan, not far from the site of the World Trade Center. But Holder reversed course a year ago after members of Congress raised a variety of protests - arguing that a federal prosecution would put an even larger al-Qaida bull's-eye on New York, would snarl traffic or would risk acquittal if a civilian judge or jury concluded that the evidence against them was obtained through torture.
Pentagon prosecutors have been preparing their case since then.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the decision to go forward with the trial at Guantanamo did not diminish Obama's desire to close the detention center there.
"There have obviously been obstacles in achieving that. But he remains committed to doing that," said Carney. "In the meantime, we have to ensure that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others who are accused of these heinous crimes are brought to justice. And a procedure is now under way to ensure that that happens."
The decision drew a rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union, which has funded some of the 9/11 defense lawyers.
The Obama administration "is making a terrible mistake by prosecuting the most important terrorism trials of our time in a second-tier system of justice," said Anthony Romero, the group's executive director. He said the war court was "set up to achieve easy convictions and hide the reality of torture, not to provide a fair trial."
"Whatever verdict comes out of the Guantanamo military commissions will be tainted by an unfair process and the politics that wrongly pulled these cases from federal courts, which have safely and successfully handled hundreds of terrorism trials," he said.
All five were interrogated by the CIA in secret overseas prisons - Mohammed was water-boarded 183 times, according to declassified CIA documents - before their 2006 transfer to Guantanamo. Once in Cuba, he bragged to a panel of U.S. military officers that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z."
The chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, has said that by law no evidence derived through torture can be used at a Guantanamo trial.
MacDonald signed the 123-page charge sheet alleging the five men engaged in a years-long conspiracy that trained the 9/11 hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, funded them in wire transfers from Persian Gulf nations and dispatched some of them to the United States from Germany. It will be up to an 11-member team of U.S. prosecutors to prove it to a military jury of a dozen or more members.
But first, the military has to present the charges at the remote prison at the U.S. base in southeast Cuba, assign a judge to the case and give the defendants a formal appearance at the war court compound, Camp Justice, probably in May. Months of pretrial challenges, including wrangling over defense resources and whether the men are competent to defend themselves, are likely to follow.
The other four men facing the death penalty charges in the joint trial are Waleed bin Attash, 33, a Yemeni; Ramzi Binalshibh, 39, a Yemeni; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, 43, a Saudi; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, 34, a Pakistani who is Mohammed's nephew and also known as Ammar al Baluchi.
The Pentagon's war court witness advocate, Karen Loftus, sent an email to Sept. 11 victims' families Wednesday advising them of the development. Some survivors and victims of the 9/11 attacks, selected through a lottery, will be invited to watch the proceedings at Guantanamo. Most will be directed to remote viewing sites being set up in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Maryland that will show closed-circuit broadcasts of the proceedings.
The broadcasts are on a 40-second delay in case someone in court divulges classified information.
Loftus also described the military jury that will hear the mass murder trial as "a panel of at least 12 members, whose function is analogous to jurors in a federal or state court. The case was also referred to as a joint trial, meaning that all five of the accused will be tried together, unless the military judge later determines that any or all of the accused should be tried separately."
A Pentagon-paid defense lawyer for Ali, accused of wiring money to the 9/11 hijackers, has argued his client should not face a capital trial because he isn't alleged to have killed or plotted to kill anyone.
"Mr. Ali would not be eligible for the death penalty if this case were tried in federal court," said attorney James Connell. "This attempt to expand the reach of the death penalty to people who neither killed nor planned to kill is another example of the second-class justice of the military commissions."
Chief prosecutor Martins has assigned himself to an 11-lawyer prosecution team that includes Justice Department lawyers Joanna Baltes, Jeffrey Groharing and Clayton Trivett as deputy trial counsels to Ryan and Swann. Trivett, a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve, and Groharing, a lieutenant colonel in the Marines, had also worked on the 9/11 prosecution during the Bush years.
(Rosenberg reports for The Miami Herald.)
Source-MSNBC.Com/Sarasota Florida Saudis home investigated
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy governed under strict Islamic laws of the Wahhabi sect, which regulate public behavior, especially for women and foreigners. Women cannot drive cars and have numerous other restrictions imposed on them, and the presence of on-Muslim foreigners is tolerated but often raises resentment.
The Arabian peninsula (Al-Jazira) is bounded by the Red Sea to the west, the Arabian Sea to the south and the Persian Gulf to the east. To the west, the Hijaz and Asir mountain ranges form a barrier from the sea. Further west, the Tihama is the coastal plain of the Red Sea. In the north, the An Nafud and 'Hamad deserts separate Saudi Arabia from Iraq and Jordan. The Rub' al Khali (empty quarter) in the southeast is a vast and generally impenetrable desert. An Nafud, a sea of enormous shifting sand dunes, was supposedly considered impenetrable until T.E. Lawrence crossed it in 1917 to attack Aqaba with his Arab allies.
The Arabs have been known in the Middle East at least since the time of Shalmanesser II in 853 BC. Arabia has been the home of several apparently distinct Semitic peoples in numerous tribes, all known as Arabs, for much of recorded history. The relatively high rainfall of Yemen and easy access to the sea made it the home of several prosperous kingdoms, including Saba (possibly the biblical Sheba), Himyar, Qataban, Minea (Ma'in) and Hadramaut. The Romans called Yemen Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia) The area was the source of frankincense and myrrh and also a relay point for spices coming from the East. An additional kingdom of Zufar was situated in the area of the modern Oman.
The north and center of the peninsula, corresponding to the Arabia Deserta of the Romans, have always been populated by nomadic tribes, in contrast to the sedentary south. For much of ancient history, Aramaic was apparently the dominant language in the northern regions, rather than Arabic. The desert is punctuated by oases where a sedentary way of life is possible, and which formed terminuses and way stations on caravan routes. Each town was located at an oasis, and was usually controlled and inhabited by several tribes who made a pact that allowed joint control of the oasis. In times of prosperity, differences between town and countryside were accentuated, and the caravans and the towns became targets of raids by relatively poorer Bedouin nomads.
The nomadic way of life and tribal organization of the interior of north and central Arabia made it difficult to form large stable political organizations. Two very well known but short-lived states were anchored outside the Arabian desert. About 100 AD, the Nabateans ruled a kingdom that stretched from Palestine to the Gulf at its greatest extent, with its capital in Petra, in what is now Jordan. The Nabateans declined and their kingdom in the West was taken over by the Romans. A second kingdom arose in the North with its capital in Palmyra, under Odenathus in 265, and flourished under his widow Zenobia. It flourished all too well however, and was extinguished by the Roman Emperor Aurelian in 273 after Zenobia proclaimed her son Athenodorus as Caesar Augustus. Two lesser known kingdoms in the interior were Li'hyan and Thamud. The Lakhmid, located in what is now Transjordan and Southern Arabia, was the first known kingdom to use Arabic as its official language. Its influence extended to the borders of South Arabia. The Kindah of western Central Arabia wrested control of much of Central Arabia from the Lakhmids in the 4th and 5th centuries AD but were forced back in 528. Two small protectorates of varying borders existed along the northern borders. Ghassan, along the border with Syria, was a Byzantine protectorate, and Hira, along the border with Persia (modern Iraq) was a Persian protectorate
The Hijaz formed part of an important trade route from the Mediterranean south to the Arabian sea, and Mecca was a key city on this route. Arabia profited from the animosity between the Roman and Persian empires, which closed more desirable east-west trade routes through Egypt. In 384 the Romans and Persians concluded a peace treaty. The trade route through the Hijaz was no longer needed and Arabia went into decline until 502, when the treaty was broken, and a new period of prosperity began for Arabia
Religion before Islam
Religion Before Islam - Before the advent of Islam, the different tribes of Arabia followed different varieties of paganism, and later many converted to Christianity and Judaism. Muhamed, who was to become the prophet of Islam, was born about 570 to the Banu Hashim family, reputable merchants in the tribe of Quraysh in Mecca. He began preaching a new monotheistic religion sometime before 622, and was forced to migrate from Mecca about 622 with his followers, in the Hegira. At Medina, Muhamed consolidated a power base and followers. By 630, the Muslims were strong enough to attack and capture Mecca. According to Muslim tradition, the attack took place only after the Quraysh had broken the treaty.
Muhamed
Muhamed - In 632, Muhamed died and was succeed by Abu Bakr, his father in law, followed by Umar, who was followed by Umar. Each ruler spread the rule of Islam, first consolidating its hold and Arabia, but rapidly expanding to Palestine (by 640), Syria, Persia and central Asia. Umar was succeeded by Uthman, who was succeeded by Muhamed's son-in-law Ali. Ali moved the capital outside Arabia to Kufa, in what is now Iraq. The further history of Islam is presented separately.
Mecca and Medina - Mecca remained the spiritual focus of Islam because it was the destination for the obligatory Haj pilgrimage. The city, however, lacked political or administrative importance even in the early Islamic period. Medina had been the main base of Muhamed's political and military administration and the capital of the early caliphs. Medina continued to be an administrative center and developed into something of an intellectual and literary one as well. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Medina became an important center for the codification of Islamic law.
Arabia in decline - As the center of Islamic and "Arab" civilization moved away from Arabia, order and culture receded, particular after the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, and later, after the overland trade routes were transferred to ocean shipping. When the Caliphate was powerful, it controlled the Hijaz and ensured the safety of pilgrims to Mecca. However, by the ninth centrury the Caliphate had been greatly weakened. The Hijaz fell under the sway of different tribes and factions. From about 967, the Hijaz was controlled by the the Hashemites, who claim direct descent from Ali, son-in-law of Muhamed, through his son Hussayn. They were the Sharifs of Mecca since 1201, though they became nominal tributaries of the Ottoman empire in the fifteenth century. The importance of Arabia as a trade route declined in the sixteenth century, as Europeans found ocean routes to the indies, but the Red Sea and the Hijaz still remained relatively prosperous and cosmopolitan. In the South East however, the Najd area was ruled by no one. The Najd was isolated. arid and barren, and was surrounded on three sides by deserts and separated from the Hijaz by mountains. The Bedouin tribes lived there in more or less total independence, and with little contact with the outside world. The Najd became the home of the Wahhabi Islamic sect and of the house of Saud that was to create modern Saudi Arabia.
The Saud family and the rise of the Wahhabis - The Saud family was established in Ad Diriyah, in the center of Najd, near the modern capital of Riyadh, where they had settled around 1500. The tribes of the Najd, relatively isolated from Islamic life, had resumed various pagan practices. Some of the Arabian tribes attributed to trees and rocks the same sort of power that the Shia venerate in the tombs of Imams. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (died 1792), initiated a comprehensive reform. He grew up in Uyaynah, an oasis in southern Najd, where he studied Hanbali Islamic law. He continued his studies in Medina and then went to Iraq and to Iran. In the late 1730s he returned to the Najd and began to write and preach against both Shia and local paganism. He focused on Muslim monotheism, and preached that there is only one God, who does not share power with anyone. His students called themselves muwahhidun (unitarians). Their detractors referred to them as "Wahhabis"--or "followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab."
Wahhab attached a militant political dimension to his preaching, attacking the Shia and attracting local sheikhs to his cause. He won over some local leaders in Uyaynah and destroying some shrines there with the assistance of the Saud family, but was obliged to leave that town because of Shi'a pressure, and headed for Ad Diriyah, where he was welcomed by the Saud family. In 1744 Muhammad ibn Saud, head of the family, and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, swore a traditional Muslim oath promising to work together to establish a state based on Islamic principles.
By 1765, when he died, Muhammad ibn Saud's forces had established Wahhabism and the authority of the Saud family, over most of Najd. His son, Abd al Aziz, continued the Wahhabi advance. In 1801 the Al Saud-Wahhabi armies attacked and sacked the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, Iraq. In 1802 or 1803 they advanced on the Hijaz. In Mecca and Medina they destroyed monuments and grave markers used for prayer to Muslim saints and for votive rituals, which they consider acts of polytheism, just as Muhamed had supposedly destroyed pagan idols in Mecca. The Wahhabi advance to the Hijaz alarmed the ruler of Egypt, Muhamad Ali. In 1812 (some say 1816) he sent his son Tursun to the Hijaz, and later joined him. On the Saudi side, Abd Allah ibn Saud ibn Abd al Aziz who faced the invading Egyptian army, but was rapidly defeated, and then pursued to Al Diriyah and evicted from there in 1818.The Wahhabis and the Saud family retreated to Riyadh, which became their capital in 1824. Subsequently the Sauds ruled Riyadh and a variable territory around it. However, interfamily rivalry and frequent civil wars weakened them. In 1890 Muhammad ibn Rashid, put effective control of Riyadh, into the hands of his own garrison commander, Salim ibn Subhan ruling through a Saud family puppet. When the puppet ruler, Abd ar Rahman attempted to exert his authority, he was driven out of Riyadh. The Saud family fled to Kuwait.
Creation of Modern Saudi Arabia - In 1902, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud began battling his way back to power in the Najd and Riyadh, and by 1905 or 1906, the Ottomans had recognized him as their client in the Najd, and he was recognized as the Wahhabi imam. He continued his advances, aided by the Ikhwan brotherhood. The Ikhwan were Wahhabi Bedouin who had gathered into Hujjar - agricultural settlements geared for war. By 1913 Abd al Aziz's had thrown the Ottomans out of Al Hufuf in eastern Arabia. Abdul Aziz's advance was during WW I. He sat by while the Hashemite family, aided and encouraged by the British, revolted against the Turks. After the war, ibn Saud resumed his advance, capturing the Jebel Shammar in 1921, Mecca in 1924 and Medina in 1925. In 1932 he renamed renamed his Kingdom Saudi Arabia.
Suppresion of the Ikhwan - Ibn Saud had trouble controlling the Ikhwan, who were too eager to attack the Hashemites, clients of the British and enemies of the Wahhabi, and who had no tolerance for necessary twentieth century innovations, including all machines and telegraph as well as the presence of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, forbidden by tradition. The Ikhwan remained eager to force reform on others, which led them to attack non-Wahhabi Muslims, and even Wahhabis, both in Saudi and in Iraq. When the Wahhabi forces continued to ignore his authority, Ibn Saud defeated them in battle in 1929. However, the conflict between the most extreme forces in Wahhabism and the more pragmatic strain was never completely resolved. Saudi ulema remained suspicious of foreign inventions. For example, they first opposed radio as a suspect modern innovation for which there was no basis in the Qur'an and the Hadiths, but were reconciled when Abd al Aziz demonstrated that the radio could be used to broadcast the Qur'an. Wahhabi rule remains strict in Saudi Arabia. No foreigners can become citizens. Women cannot get drivers licenses and cannot perform legal and financial procedures on their own. Alcohol is forbidden in the kingdom.
Discovery of oil - Beginning in the 1930s, the ARAMCO consortium, including Standard Oil of California and other firms, that had gotten oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, discovered huge quantities of petroleum. Saudi oil is close to the surface and therefore it is very cheap to extract. The discovery of oil transformed the kingdom and gave it, and the entire Gulf Region extraordinary strategic importance in World War II and thereafter. However, in large part, oil revenues contributed to the fortunes of the Saud family, who rule as absolute monarchs, and did not produce a concomitant social revolution and modern development such as occurred in some of the Gulf countries.
King Saud - King Abdul Aziz died in 1953, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Saud. Saud was a spendthrift and political adventurer. His support for Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt alienated the US and British, his traditional allies. A 1957 visit by Saud to the United States raised eyebrows there due to his ostentatious lifestyle. His huge retinue, sumptuous feasts and conspicuous consumption by family members were widely reported. However, the visit served to cement a strategic friendship with the United States that has largely survived intact to present times.
In March 1958, economic problems forced Saud to transfer legislative and executive powers to the prime minister, his brother Crown Prince Faisal, but shortly thereafter, Saud reassumed control of the government from Faisal. The union of Syria and Egypt alarmed the Saud family, who feared that they would be swept away on a tide of Arab nationalism, and there were rumors that Saud had conspired to assassinate Nasser. The kingdom also had to deal with the effects of the civil war in Yemen that raged in the 1960s. Saud was forced to abdicate in 1964 owing to fiscal profligacy. On November 2, 1964 Prince Faisal became king, designating his half-brother, Prince Khalid ibn Abdul, as his successor. Saud tried unsuccessfully to subvert the Saudi government from his exile in Cairo.
King Faisal - Faisal was a spartan and observant monarch, raised in the Wahhabi tradition by his mother, a scion of the Wahhabi clan. However, in addition to improved fiscal responsibility and relative austerity, Faisal introduced innovations such as television, inciting the opposition of conservative elements in the kingdom. Faisal is credited with abolishing slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1962. He was also active in foreign affairs. Faisal helped bankroll the PLO and other anti-Israel ventures, and following the disastrous defeat of the Arabs in the 6-day war, he set up a special compensation fund for Arab countries that had suffered in the war. He initiated the oil embargo that followed the 1973 October war (Yom Kippur war). The boycott and the organization of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) as a coordinated monopoly tripled and quadrupled the price of oil. Saudi Arabia, as the world's largest exporter of oil, benefited from new found prosperity. However, Faisal was assassinated in 1975 by his nephew, and Khalid became king.
King Khalid - Khalid continued the process of modernization and under his rule Saudi Arabia initiated several foreign policy initiatives through Crown Prince Fahd. Fahd assumed a key role in the government because of Khalid's failing health. In 1979, Saudi Arabia was rocked by fundamentalist Sunni riots in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, initiated by those who felt the kingdom had become too liberal. Over 500 dissidents invaded and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca on November 20. The leader of the dissidents, Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba, belonged to an important Najd family. His ancestors had been soldiers and comrades of Abd al Aziz ibn Saud. Juhaiman charged that the Saud family had become steeped in corruption, ostentation, and imitation of the West, echoing the rhetoric of the Ayatollah Khomeini's diatribes against the shah in Iran. The rioters shot and killed a guard in the Mosque, a holy place, where bloodshed is punishable by crucifixion. It was not possible to dislodge them by force until the Ulema issued a special Fatwa (religious decree) permitting bloodshed in the holy precincts.
Riots and disturbances - Later in 1979 and in 1980 there were riots in the eastern Shi'a areas, due to economic discrimination and neglect, and possibly due to incitement from neighboring Iran, which had undergone a fundamentalist Shi'a revolution in 1979. The rioters carried picture of Khomeini. The area is sensitive because of oil production facilities that are easily sabotaged, run by Aramco, which employs many Shi'ites. The government responded with massive repression, but later provided a special economic development package for these areas.
Saudi Peace initiative - Saudi Arabia responded to the Egyptian peace negotiations with Israel by breaking diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1979. However in 1981, Crown Prince Fahd offered a peace plan of his own. The Fahd peace plan, envisioned a comprehensive settlement that included the creation of a Palestinian state and Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
King Fahd - King Khalid died in 1982 and was succeeded by Fahd, who designated Abdullah as crown prince. Saudi Arabia apparently cooperated with the United States in keeping oil prices low in the 80s in order to hurt Soviet energy trade and bring down the Soviet economy. Saudi Arabia was a in a unique position to do so because it has vast reserves and because extraction of Saudi oil costs about a dollar a barrel. Extraction of Russian oil costs about $18 a barrel; oil prices must be higher than that figure to make extraction possible. The Saudis are thought to have used their reserves and tremendous capacity to maintain an over-supply of oil on the world market and force the Soviets out. Falling oil prices allowed Saudi Arabia to dismiss some of the foreigners employed in the kingdom. However, the fall in oil prices ultimately hurt the Saudi economy.
In 1991, the kingdom accepted comparatively large numbers of US troops, and was a base for US operations against Iraq. who remained in the kingdom after the end of Desert Storm, angering traditionalists. At the same time, the Saudi government and members of the Saudi family have been bankrolling extremist groups such as the Palestinian Hamas as well as Central Asian groups such as Hizb ut Tahrir, and paying for Islamic schools that are often hot beds of fundamentalism.
Osama Bin Laden, a dissident member of a rich Saudi family, is credited with a key role in organizing the successful overthrow of the Soviet-backed Afghanistan government with the support of the US Central Intelligence Agency. Some say he was also aided by Saudi Prince Turki-El-Feisal, then head of the Saudi intelligence services. Bin Laden became an implacable fundamentalist foe of the United States, and his Al-Qaeda network planned and executed the terror attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. The major stated reason for Bin-Laden's hostility to the US is the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Many of the attackers were of Saudi origin, and subsequent revelations about Saudi support of Islamic and Islamist fundamentalist groups have strained relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In 2002, against the background of the second Palestinian Intifada and the looming war in Iraq, Crown Prince Abdullah initiated an Arab peace plan quite similar to the one offered by Crown Prince Fahd in 1981. The former plan had foundered on the resistance of Syria and other hard-line states. This plan was accepted at an Arab summit conference in Beirut.
The Saudi regime was rocked in 2003 by Al-Qaeda engineered explosions that took place in Riyadh in May and November, as well as riots demanding reform by both traditionalists and democratic reformers. The unrest was met with arrests and force, but also with promises of reform. The regime sponsored a forum on reform. State-supported preachers issued Fatwas (religious edits) enjoining against violence between Muslims and suicide attacks.
Ami Isseroff
Source-Mideast web.org
Jewish Roots of Saudi Arabia
Source-The House of Saud
RESEARCH AND PRESENTATION OF: MOHAMMAD SAKHER , who was ordered killed by the Saudi Regime for the following findings:
1. Are the Saudi Family members belonging to the Tribe of ANZA BEN WA'EL as they allege to be?
2. Is Islam their actual religion?
3. Are they of an ARAB ORIGIN at all?
In the year 851 A.H. a group of men from AL MASALEEKH CLAN, which was a branch of ANZA Tribe, formed a caravan for buying cereals (wheat and corn) and other food stuff from IRAQ, and transporting it back to NAJD. The head of that group was a man called SAHMI BIN HATHLOOL. The caravan reached BASRA, where the members of the group went to a cereal merchant who was a Jew, Called MORDAKHAI BIN IBRAHIM BIN MOSHE'. During their bargaining with that merchant, the Jew asked them : "Where are you from?" They answered: "From ANZA TRIBE; a clan of AL MASALEEKH." Upon hearing that name, the Jew started to hug so affectionately each one of them saying that he, himself, was also from the clan of AL MASALEEKH, but he had come to reside in BASRA (IRAQ) in consequence to a family feud between his father and some members of ANZA Tribe.
After he recounted to them his fabricated narrative, he ordered his servants to load all the camels of the clan's members with wheat, dates and tamman; a remarkable deed so generous that astonished the MASALEEKH men and aroused their pride to find such an affectionate (cousin) in IRAQ- the source of their sustenance; they believed each word he said , and , because he was a rich merchant of the food commodities which they were badly in need, they liked him (even though he was a Jew concealed under the garb of an Arab from AL MASALEEKH clan).
When the caravan was ready to depart returning to NAJD, that Jewish Merchant asked them to accept his company, because he intended to go with them to his original homeland, NAJD. Upon hearing that from him, they wholeheartedly welcomed him with a very cheerful attitude.
So that (concealed) Jew reached NAJD with the caravan. In NAJD, he started to promulgate a lot of propaganda for himself through his companions (his alleged cousins), a fact, which gathered around him a considerable number of new supporters; but, unexpectedly, he confronted a campaign of opposition to his views led by SHEIKH SALEH SALMAN ABDULLA AL TAMIMI, who was a Muslem religious preacher in AL-QASEEM. The radius of his preaching area included Najd, Yemen, and Hijaz, a fact which compelled the Jew (the Ancestor of the present SAUDI FAMILY to depart from AL QASEEM to AL IHSA, where he changed his name (MORDAKHAI) To MARKHAN BIN IBRAHIM MUSA. Then he changed the location of his residence and settled at a place called DIR'IYA near AL-QATEEF, where he started to spread among the inhabitants a fabricated story about the shield of our Prophet MOHAMMAD (p.b.u.h), that it was taken as a booty by an Arab Pagan in consequence of OHOD Battle between the Arab pagans and the Muslems. "That shield, he said, was sold by the Arab Pagan to a Jewish Clan called BANU QUNAIQA' who preserved it as a treasure! He gradually enhanced his position among the Bedouins through such stories which indicated how the Jewish clans in Arabia were so influential and deserved high esteem. He gained some personal importance among the Bedouins, and decided to settle permanently there, at DIR'IYA town, near AL QATEEF, which he decided to be his (Capital) on the Persian Gulf. He aspired to make it his spring board for establishing a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia.
In order to fulfill his ambitious scheme, he started to approach the desert Arab Bedouins for support of his position, them gradually, he declared himself as their king!
At that juncture, AJAMAN Tribe together with BANU KHALED Tribe became fully aware of that Jewish cunning plan after they had verified his true identity, and decided to put an end to him. They attacked his town and conquered it, but before arresting him he had escaped by the skin of his teeth.
That Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY, (MORDAKHAI), sought shelter in a farm called at that time AL-MALIBEED-GHUSAIBA near AL-ARID, which is called at our present time : AL-RIYADH.
He requested the owner of that farm to grant him an asylum. The farmer was so hospitable that he immediately gave him sanctuary. But that Jew (MORDAKHAI), no longer than a month had he stayed there, when he assassinated the land lord and all members of his family, pretending that all were killed by an invading band of thieves. Then he pretended that he had bought that real estate from them before that catastrophe happened to them! Accordingly, he had the right to reside there as a land lord. He then gave a new name to that place: He named it AL-DIRIYA - the same name as that he had lost.
That Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY (MORDAKHAI), was quick to establish a "GUEST HOUSE" called "MADAFFA" on the land he usurped from his victims, and gathered around him a group of hypocrites who started to spread out false propaganda for him that he was a prominent Arab Sheikh. He plotted against Sheikh SALEH SALMAN ABDULLA AL TAMIMI, his original enemy, and caused his assassination in the mosque of the town called (AL-ZALAFI).
After that, he felt satisfied and safe to make (AL-DIRIYA) his permanent home. There he practiced polygamy at a wide scale, and indeed, he begot a lot of children whom he gave pure Arab names.
Eversince his descendants grew up in number and power under the name of SAUDI CLAN, they have followed his steps in practicing under ground activities and conspiracies against the Arab Nation. They illegally seized rural sectors and farm lands, and assassinated every person who tried to oppose their evil plans. They used all kinds of deceit for reaching their goals: they bought the conscience of their dissidents; they offered their women and money to influential people in that area, particularly to those who started to write the true biography of that Jewish Family; they bribed writers of history in order to purify their ignominious history, and make their lineage related to the most prominent Arab Tribes such as RABI'A, ANZA and ALMASALEEKH.
A conspicuous hypocrite in our era whose name is MOHAMMAD AMIN AL TAMIMI- Director/Manager of the contemporary Libraries of the SAUDI KINGDOM, made up a genealogical tree (FAMILY TREE) for this JEWISH FAMILY (THE SAUDIS), connecting them to our Great Prophet, MOHAMMAD (P.B.U.H) For his false work, he received a reward of 35 (THIRTY FIVE) THOUSAND EYPTIAN POUNDS from the then SAUDI AMBASSADOR TO CAIRO, EGYPT, in the year 1362 AH.- 1943 A.D. The name of that Ambassador is : IBRAHIM AL-FADEL.
As aforementioned, the Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY, (MORDAKHAI), practiced polygamy by marrying a lot of Arab women and begot many children; his polygamous practice is, at the present time, being carried out " to the letter" by his descendants; they cling to his marital heritage!
One of MORDAKHAI'S sons called AL-MAQARAN, arabized from the Jewish root (MACK-REN) begot a son called Mohammad, then another son called SAUD, which is the name of the present day SAUDI DYNASTY.
Descendants of SAUD (the present day SAUDI FAMILY )started a campaign of assassination of the prominent leaders of the Arab Tribes under the pretence that those leaders were apostates; renegading from the Islamic Religion, and deserting their Koranic doctrines; so they deserved the SAUDI condemnation and slaughter!
In the History Book of the SAUDI FAMILY pages (98-101), their private family historian declares that the SAUDI DYNASTY considers all the people of NAJD blasphemous; so their blood must be shed, their properties confiscated, and their females be taken as concubines; no muslem is authentic in his /her belief unless he/she belongs (affiliates) to the sect of MOHAMMAD BIN ABDUL WAHAB, (whose origins are also Jewish from TURKEY.) His doctrines give authority to the SAUDI FAMILY to destroy the villages with all their inhabitants-males including children, and to sexually assault their women; stab the bellies of the pregnant, and cut off the hands of their children, then burn them! They are further authorized by such a BRUTAL DOCTRINE to plunder all the properties of whom they call renegades (not following there Wahabi sect.)
Their hideous Jewish Family has, in fact, done all that kind of atrocities in the name of their false religious sect (the Wahabi), which has actually been invented by a Jew so as to sow the seeds of terror in the hearts of people in towns and villages. This Jewish Dynasty has been committing such brutal atrocities eversince 1163 A.H. They have named the whole Arabian Peninsula after their family name (SAUDI ARABIA) as if the whole region is their own personal real estate, and that all other inhabitants are their mere servants or slaves, toiling day and night for the pleasure of their masters (THE SAUDI FAMILY).
They are completely holding the natural wealth of the country as their own property. If any poor person from the common people raises his/her voice complaining against any of the despotic rules of this Jewish Dynasty, (the Dynasty) cuts off his/her head in the public square. A princess of theirs once visited FLORIDA, USA, with her retinue; she rented 90 (NINETY) Suite rooms in a Grand Hotel for about One Million Dollars a night! Can anyone of their subjects comment about that extravagant event If he/she does, his/her fate is quite known: DEATH WITH THE EDGE OF THE SAUDI SWORD IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE!!!!!!
Witnesses on the Jewish Ancestry of this Saudi Family:
In the 1960's the "SAWT AL ARAB" Broadcasting Station in Cairo, Egypt, and the YEMEN Broadcasting Station in SANA'A confirmed the Jewish Ancestry of the SAUDI Family.
King FAISAL AL-SAUD at that time could not deny his family's kindred with the JEWS when he declared to the WASHINGTON POST on Sept. 17, 1969 stating: "WE, THE SAUDI FAMILY, are cousins of the Jews: we entirely disagree with any Arab or Muslem Authority which shows any antagonism to the Jews; but we must live together with them in peace. Our country (ARABIA) is the Fountain head from where the first Jew sprang, and his descendants spread out all over the world." That was the declaration of KING FAISAL AL-SAUD BIN ABDUL AZIZ!!!!!
HAFEZ WAHBI, The SAUDI Legal Adviser, mentioned in his book entitled: "THE PENINSULA OF ARABIA" that KING ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD, who died in 1953, had said : "Our Message (SAUDI MESSAGE) encountered the opposition of all Arab Tribes; my grandfather, SAUD AWAL, once imprisoned a number of the Sheikhs of MATHEER Tribe; and when another group of the same tribe came to intercede for the release of the prisoners, SAUD AWAL gave orders to his men to cut off the heads of all the prisoners, then, he wanted to humiliate and derogate the interceders by inviting them to eat from a banquet he prepared from the cooked flesh of his victims whose cut off heads he placed on the top of the food platters!! The interceders became so alarmed and declined to eat the flesh of their relatives; and, because of their refusal to eat, he ordered his men to cut off their heads too. That hideous crime was committed by that self imposed king to innocent people whose guilt was their opposition to his most cruel and extremely despotic rules.
HAFEZ WAHBI, states further that King ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD related that bloody true story to the Sheikhs of the MATHEER Tribe, who visited him in order to intercede for their prominent leader at that time, FAISAL AL DARWEESH, who was the king's prisoner. He related that story to them in order to prevent them from interceding for the release of their Sheikh; otherwise, they would face the same fate; He killed the Sheikh and used his blood as an ablution liquid for him just before he stood up for his prayer (after the false sect doctrine of the Wahabi); The guilt of FAISAL DARWEESH at that time was that he had criticized King ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD when the king signed the document which the English Authorities prepared in 1922 as a declaration for giving PALESTINE to the Jews; his signature was obtained in the conference held at AL AQEER in 1922.
That was and still is the system of this Regime of the JEWISH FAMILY (SAUDI FAMILY): All its goals are : plundering the wealth of the country, robbing, falsifying, and committing all kinds of atrocity, iniquity, and blasphemy-all are executed in compliance with their self invented Wahabi Sect which legalizes the chopping of the heads of their opposing subjects.
Source-Anngirfan.blogspot.com/Jewish Saudi Arabia
Jewish Saudi Arabia-The Donmeh(Crypto Jews)
The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part I)
Wayne MADSEN | 25.10.2011 | 20:39
Part 1 Wayne Madsen Report
There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. It is a factor that is generally only whispered about at diplomatic receptions, news conferences, and think tank sessions due to the explosiveness and controversial nature of the subject. And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran…
Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.
The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the Messiah but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan.
Part 2 The Donmeh
Saudi Arabia Present Day
CIA World Factbook
Economy
Economy - overview:
Saudi Arabia has an oil-based economy with strong government controls over major economic activities. It possesses about one-fifth of the world's proven petroleum reserves, ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum, and plays a leading role in OPEC. The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 80% of budget revenues, 45% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings. Saudi Arabia is encouraging the growth of the private sector in order to diversify its economy and to employ more Saudi nationals. Diversification efforts are focusing on power generation, telecommunications, natural gas exploration, and petrochemical sectors. Almost 6 million foreign workers play an important role in the Saudi economy, particularly in the oil and service sectors, while Riyadh is struggling to reduce unemployment among its own nationals. Saudi officials are particularly focused on employing its large youth population, which generally lacks the education and technical skills the private sector needs. Riyadh has substantially boosted spending on job training and education, most recently with the opening of the King Abdallah University of Science and Technology - Saudi Arabia's first co-educational university. As part of its effort to attract foreign investment, Saudi Arabia acceded to the WTO in December 2005 after many years of negotiations. The government has begun establishing six "economic cities" in different regions of the country to promote foreign investment and plans to spend $373 billion between 2010 and 2014 on social development and infrastructure projects to advance Saudi Arabia's economic development.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$676.7 billion (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 24
$635.6 billion (2010 est.)
$610.3 billion (2009 est.)
note: data are in 2011 US dollars
GDP (official exchange rate):
$560.3 billion (2011 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
6.5% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 33
4.1% (2010 est.)
0.1% (2009 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP):
$24,000 (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 55
$23,100 (2010 est.)
$22,900 (2009 est.)
note: data are in 2011 US dollars
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 2.1%
industry: 67.6%
services: 30.4% (2011 est.)
Labor force:
7.63 million
country comparison to the world: 61
note: about 80% of the labor force is non-national (2011 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 6.7%
industry: 21.4%
services: 71.9% (2005 est.)
Unemployment rate:
10.9% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 117
10.8% (2010 est.)
note: data are for Saudi males only (local bank estimates; some estimates range as high as 25%)
Population below poverty line:
NA%
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%
Investment (gross fixed):
19.2% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 130
Budget:
revenues: $293.1 billion
expenditures: $210.6 billion (2011 est.)
Taxes and other revenues:
52.3% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 14
Budget surplus (+) or deficit (-):
14.7% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 5
Public debt:
9.4% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 122
16.6% of GDP (2010 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
5% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 117
5.4% (2010 est.)
Central bank discount rate:
2.5% (31 December 2008)
Commercial bank prime lending rate:
7.2% (31 December 2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 139
7.2% (31 December 2010 est.)
Stock of narrow money:
$205.9 billion (31 December 2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 18
$166.8 billion (31 December 2010 est.)
Source-Saudi Interior Ministry
Coast to Coast Radio Show 2/11/12
COAST TO COAST RADIO SHOW 9-21-11 part 1 Saudi Arabia Conspiracy against America
Part 2
Saudi Arabia and 911
911 Review
Alleged Hijackers
According to the official story, teams of four and five hijackers armed only with primitive weapons (boxcutters) overcame the flight crews of four out of four flights and then proceeded to fly three of the four planes into The World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
The alleged hijackers supposedly belonged to semi-autonomous cells, having been in the United States for months and years. The cells were directed by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden.
The hijacker story had a great deal of appeal to the American audience. The hijackers were all Muslim extremists, far removed from mainstream American culture. Their fanaticism made their success against overwhelming odds seem more plausible.
Despite its attractive features, the hijacker story is challenged by many facts, especially relating to the implausability that they could have performed all of the tasks attributed to them by the official story. However, a mantra of "no Muslum hijackers" has become a staple of some skeptics of the official story based primarily on the following arguments:
There is a lack of credible evidence that the alleged hijackers were on any of the four planes.
Passenger manifests for each of the four flights lacked any Arab names.
Several alleged hijackers reported themselves alive following the attack.
The behavior of several of the alleged hijackers prior to the attack was inconsistent with Muslum beliefs and practices. 1
Each of these four arguments has been challenged and discredited to some degree. Argument 1 requires dismissing the many reported phone calls from the planes as evidence of hijackers. Implausible theories of phone-call fakery have been advanced to discount the numerous reported calls from Flight 93 in particular. Argument 2 has been exposed as based on mischaracterizing victims lists, published in the media shortly after the attack, as passenger manifests. Around the time of the Moussaoui trial, a list of alleged passenger manifests was released to a reporter by the FBI, and those lists contain Arab names. Argument 3 has been eviscerated somewhat by the BBC essentially repudiating its original reports in 2006. Argument 4 has been challenged by questioning the credibility of news reports describing carousing behavior.
These arguments have tended to eclipse analysis of the official hijacking scenario that show it to be highly implausible operationally. The following arguments go to the implausibility of the official account without excluding the possibility that there were Arab-looking men on the planes, perhaps in the role of patsies.
None of the alleged hijackers were good pilots, and none had flown jet airplanes, let alone large jetliners. Yet they are supposed to have piloted jetliners into their targets with apparent "surgical strike" precision.
The staggered flight times and long flight paths of the targeted jetliners exposed the plan to certain defeat, had the air defense system been allowed to function normally.
According to the official account, four flight crews were defeated, and the pilots removed from their seats by bands of four or five hijackers using only "boxcutters", despite several of the airline pilots being Vietnam combat veterans.
Not one of the flight crews radioed distress or punched in the four-digit hijack code. 2
The silent takeovers of each of the jetliners proceeded despite alerts raised by the hijacking of Flight 11 being communicated to pilots of the remaining flights.
Not a "Single Piece of Paper" Links Alleged Hijackers to Plot
Most of the above facts are never acknowledged by government agencies or mainstream media. However, FBI director Robert Mueller did admit that his agency failed to find "a single piece of paper" linking the alleged hijackers to the 9/11/01 plot.
Sourc-physics911.net/no arabs flight 11
Amanda Keller Mohammed Attas Stripper Girlfriend
Source-gawker.com/Mysterious Saudi Family in U.S. disappears two weeks before 911
Did you know that a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Fla., that met with 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta disappeared without a trace—leaving behind their cars, food, and furniture—two weeks before the attacks? Neither did Congress, or the 9/11 Commission! The FBI didn't think to tell them.
It's amazing what stuff starts coming out ten years later. You'd think that 9/11 was one of the most picked-over events in history, with thousands of journalists, intelligence agents, and investigators poring over every aspect of the attacks. Not really! Some recorded radio communications from that day are just coming to light now. And today we learn that a Saudi family that actually met with Atta up and disappeared without a trace just days before the attacks, something that the FBI investigated but never bothered to tell Congress or the 9/11 Commission. Writing for the Miami Herald, Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen report:
Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, Fla., leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter - and an open safe in a master bedroom....
The couple, living with their small children at the three-bedroom house at 4224 Escondito Circle, had left in a hurry in a white van, probably on Aug. 30.
They abandoned three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway....
Berberich and a senior counterterrorism agent said they were able to get into the abandoned house, ultimately finding "there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms ... all the toiletries still in place ... all their clothes hanging in the closet ... TVs ... opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house ... the pool running, with toys in it."
"The beds were made ... fruit on the counter ... the refrigerator full of food. ... It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie. ... (But) the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. ... A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they'd taken (another) computer and left the cord."
Big deal, right? Who cares if some Saudi citizens happened to decide to go home, or move somewhere else, in late August 2001? Well, their neighbors found it suspicious, and one of them called the FBI on the day of the attacks to report the departure. And it turns out the couple, Anoud and Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, had ties to the 9/11 hijackers.
[A] counterterrorism officer, who requested his name not be disclosed, said agents went on to make troubling discoveries: Phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escondito Circle to the hijackers....
The counterterrorism agent said records of incoming and outgoing calls made at the Escondito house were obtained from the phone company under subpoena.
Agents were able to conduct a link analysis, a system of tracking calls based on dates, times and length of conversations—finding the Escondito calls dating back more than a year, "lined up with the known suspects."
The links were not just to Atta and his hijack pilots, the agent said, but to 11 other terrorist suspects, including Walid al-Shehhri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.
Another was Adnan Shukrijumah, a former Miramar, Fla., resident identified as having been with Atta in the spring of 2001. Shukrijumah is still at large and is on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
OK, you're saying, sure: A "link analysis" connects them to the hijackers. But the FBI can link Atta to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach if it wants to. So they called someone who called someone who called a hijacker. What does that prove?
But it was the gate records at the Prestancia development that produced the most telltale information. People who arrived by car had to give their names and the home's address they were visiting. Gate staff would sometimes ask to see a driver's license and note the name, Berberich said. More importantly, he added, the license plates of cars pulling through the gate were photographed.
Atta is known to have used variations of his name, but the license plate of the car he owned was on record.
The vehicle and name information on Atta and Jarrah fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit the home at 4224 Escondito Circle, said Berberich and the counterterrorism officer.
So there you have it: The FBI had photos of Mohammed Atta's car driving to visit a Saudi family that suddenly disappeared mysteriously just days before Atta executed the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history and the bureau never told anyone about it. Totally unrelated: The only major redaction in the 9/11 Commission report was a 28-page section spelling out connections between the hijackers and Saudi elites. I can't wait until the 20th anniversary, when we'll get to find out more. Happy 9/11 Day!
SAUDI GIP(Intelligence Agency of Saudi Arabia)
Source-Foreign Policy
Position: Director general of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency (GIP)
Career: The youngest son of the Saudi kingdom's founder, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz lived in relative anonymity for the first 60 years of his life. Born in 1945 and educated in the West, Prince Muqrin served in the Royal Saudi Air Force and as governor of several Saudi provinces, including al-Madinah, whose capital is the holy city of Medina. In 2005, he was tapped by his half brother King Abdullah to head the GIP, a daunting task given his lack of intelligence experience and the long shadow of his predecessors, among them legendary chief Prince Turki bin Faisal.
Influence: Despite his inexperience, Muqrin's star has risen quickly in the past three years as he has become a versatile point man for King Abdullah. Muqrin's responsibilities include managing Riyadh's critical Pakistan and Afghanistan portfolio. He has been a regular visitor to Islamabad, maintaining the kingdom's relationships with a wide array of Pakistani political leaders. As for Afghanistan, Muqrin was dispatched to Kabul in January to meet leading officials, including President Hamid Karzai.
The prince might have had an ulterior motive: News reports suggest that the trip was part of Muqrin's overall campaign to bring Taliban leaders into talks with Kabul, suggesting that Muqrin is continuing his predecessor's policy of maintaining contact with Taliban leaders. A month later, Muqrin was sent to Damascus to personally deliver overtures to the Assad regime as part of the larger Arab campaign to reengage Syria. Involvement in critical Saudi foreign-policy efforts and his relative youth have positioned Muqrin well for greater responsibilities in the near future.
Saudi General Intelligence Presidency
The Ri'āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-'Āmah (Arabic: رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة), or the General Intelligence Presidency (Arabic: رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة) (GIP), is the primary intelligence agency of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The role of intelligence was recognized by King Abdulaziz Al-Saud who had used it in his unification of Saudi Arabia. His interest in modern communication increasingly grew when he set up the first radio communications system in Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom started the intelligence service in 1955 under the name of Al-Mabahith Al-Aammah.
Source-Wikipedia
History
During the reign of King Saud bin Abdulaziz, the General Intelligence was separated from the Mabahith (General Investigation Directorate). Intelligence was established as an independent security service with the issuing of the Royal Decree 11 in 1957 that ordered the setting up of a special department under the title of Maslahat Al-Istikhbarat Al-Aammah or (General Intelligence Department). During this period two branches of the Presidency were set up locally, the western branch in Jeddah, and eastern one in Dhahran.
The GIP expanded under King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, with the opening of offices abroad. The agency expanded its monitoring of internal threats after the 1979 capture of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.[1]
The GIP's charter was changed by King Khaled bin Abdulaziz in 1982, by Royal Decree M-5, dated 19 December 1982, which set out its responsibilities, duties, and the limits of its activities. This established the internal organization of the agency with a General Department for Operations, the General Department for Administration and Finance, the General Department for Training and Planning, and the General Department for Technical Affairs. Along with the National Research Center, and the Center for Media and International Communications (previously Center for Translation and Media).
In 1997, the Office for External Communications was transferred to the Presidency from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Its name was also changed to the General Department for External Communications, and it was strengthened with the addition of high-tech equipment and specialists in radio surveillance. This period saw the expansion of the activities of the agency abroad with the establishment and development of more offices in other countries, and through more effort to organize its work.
During the reign of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz the Higher Committee for Development was set up and was chaired by the President of the General Intelligence Presidency; its membership consisted of the heads of the various departments of the GIP. Also during the tenure of King Fahd, the administrative structuring of the Information Center was approved.
Muqran bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud was appointed as president of the General Intelligence Presidency by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz in October 2005[2].
The mission of the Presidency is “provide strategic intelligence, contribute to achieve national security, and provide timely information to the authorities, so that they can take rapid and appropriate actions.”
GIP MISSION
The GIP does this through:
1. Early collection of information about countries of interest.
2. Planning and executing intelligence operations in these countries.
3. Countering espionage, intellectual and material destruction and uncovering hostile individuals.
4. Coordinating specialized studies and strategic research by the intelligence staff and in cooperation with universities, research centers, security bodies and other intelligence services.
5. Monitoring the changing domestic and international situation.
Former Saudi Intelligence Chief worries about Iran
Source-France24.com
U.S. Military Build-Up on Islands of Socatra, Yemen and Masirah, Oman
While quietly casting lines to draw Tehran into talks on their nuclear dispute, PresidentBarack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands – Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Socotra is situated 80 kilometers east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers southeast of the Yemeni coastline. It lies athwart the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A military base there is in a position to oversee the shipping moving in and out of those strategic naval waterways.
Lushly verdant, Socotra is approximately 120 kilometers long by 40 kilometers wide. Its population of 55,000 has its own distinct language and culture. Since 2010, the US has been quietly building giant air force and naval bases on Socotra with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for flying stealth drones, as part of a linked chain of strategic US military facilities in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
The Socotra facilities are so secret that they are never mentioned in any catalogue listing US military facilities in this part of the world, which include Jebel Ali and Al Dahfra in the United Arab Emirates; Arifjan in Kuwait; and Al Udeid in Qatar – all within short flying distances from Iran.
Additional US forces are also being poured into Camp Justice on the barren, 70-kilometer long Omani island of Masirah, just south of the Hormuz entry point to the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea.
US military facilities were established there after the signing of an access agreement with Oman in 1980.
Up to 100,000 troops by March
Up to 100,000 US troops present by early March
For the new buildup on Socotra, Washington had to negotiate a new deal with Yemen's ousted ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Injured in an assassination attempt last year, Saleh demanded permission to travel to the United States for medical treatment. The Obama administration first refused, then relented when Saleh made it his condition for consenting to additional troops landing on the island.
Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands tellDEBKA-Net-Weekly that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
Then, 100,000 American troops were massed in Kuwait ahead of the invasion. Today, those sources estimate from the current pace of arrivals on the two island bases, that 50,000 US troops will have accumulated on Socotra and Masirah by mid-February. They will top up the 50,000 military already present in the Persian Gulf region, so that in less than a month, Washington will have some 100,000 military personnel on the spot and available for any contingency.
US air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra and Masirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America's biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away. The US military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are theUSS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
A fourth US carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days' sailing time from the water off Iran's coast.
By early March, therefore, America will have piled up enough military strength within reach of Iran to exercise its consistently avowed military option.
Tuesday, Jan. 24, in his State of the Union address, the president said: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”
Our military sources have also picked up reports of British and French air, naval and special forces landings this month in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
All these military concentrations and Obama's latest word on the Iranian nuclear issue tend to confirm that nothing has changed since DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources in Washington first reported in November 2011 on the US president's resolve to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in the course of 2012.
(See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 515 of Nov. 4: Targeting Tehran: Obama Set to Attack Iran’s Nuclear Sites by the fall of 2012),
The only difference may be the possibility of the date moving up from fall to spring, depending on three developments:
1. The outcome of the secret exchanges taking place between Washington and Tehran on which we have reported exclusively;
2. An Israeli decision to go ahead with a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Obama has not been able to convince Israel to drop this option and leave military action entirely to the United States.
3. The US presidential election campaign: Obama may decide to go for an attack to cripple Iran's nuclear program and preempt its production of a bomb to gain a winning hand for trumping his Republican rivals' accusation that he is weak on Iran.
Saudi Arabia vs. Iran
Saudis deploying thousands of troops on eastern oil fields
Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told Al-Arabiya television last week that the Saudi government takes Iran's threats seriously. He pointed in particular to the words of Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who warned that Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi's promise to boost oil production by 2.7 million barrels a day (bpd) to make up for any shortfall caused by sanctions on Iran, would "create all possible problems later."
Prince Turki said he personally did not believe the oil kingdom would engage in military action but added:
"It's a direct threat to our national interests and a direct threat to our industrial installations on the coast."
Other Saudi officials in Riyadh were less diplomatic: "Iran's threats could be interpreted by Saudi Arabia as an act of war," said a senior Saudi defense official bluntly.
This week, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report, Saudi Arabia began deploying its military in the kingdom's oil regions in the east opposite the Persian Gulf.
Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 intercept missile batteries were installed around the oil fields and oil terminals; Saudi special forces stationed around the kingdom's main export terminal at Ras Tanura; and special marine and naval forces trained to defend the installations began conducting sea patrols off shore.
Saudi armored forces were furthermore stationed at the main junctions of the pipelines and pumping stations and its air force and navy put on a state of alert.
While the whole world talked about Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to an embargo on its oil exports, the Saudis were far more concerned with the reality of the second half of that threat: They are certain that the menace of an Iranian strike at Saudi oil targets will loom ever larger as US-European sanctions bite deeper into Iran's oil sales and Riyadh steps up its oil production to make up for the Iranian shortfall.
Tehran resorts to smuggling after its oil sales shrink
The Saudis envision a panoply of aggressive Iranian operations: Missiles striking their oil fields and export terminals - aimed from speedboats zooming up close to target and launched from small unpopulated Persian Gulf islands occupied for the purpose by especially trained Iranian units.
Iranian frogmen may come ashore to sabotage oil installations and pipelines; kamikaze pilots crash their planes into the oil tankers; and booby-trapped speedboats piloted by suicide attackers try to ram oil installations or tankers.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Gulf sources report that Riyadh challenges assessments in the West and Israel that the oil embargo has not yet touched Iran. According to Saudi figures, Tehran is already losing buyers and its regular export volume of around 2.5 million barrels a day has dropped by 15-20 percent.
To make up the difference, says Riyadh, the Iranians have in recent weeks set in motion a major enterprise for smuggling their oil out to market through certain Persian Gulf countries.
They are using large and medium sized oil tankers without flags or identifying markings to drop anchor in Gulf ports, most frequently in Abu Dhabi and Oman. Shrewd traders specializing in the sale of smuggled oil then purchase quantities of crude with cash and transport it to various buyers who don't ask questions about its provenance.
This week, Saudi officials, accompanied by oil, security and intelligence experts, visited Abu Dhabi and Oman and asked the authorities there to put a stop to Iranian oil smuggling. But Riyadh understands that its effort to dry up the Iranian oil smuggling machine may bring Tehran still closer to a decision to go on the offensive against Saudi Arabia.
The Straight of Hormuz
The passage through the Strait of Hormuz by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three destroyers – one American, one British and one French, early Monday, Jan. 23 - surprised the world, but not apparently Tehran, which let the warships sail through without interference or incident.
Just two days earlier, Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) deputy commander Hossein Salamimade an uncharacteristically mild comment: “US warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” he said.
These events were the first outward sign of back-channel talks afoot between the emissaries of US PresidentBarack Obama and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Earlier that day, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, posing in the uniform of an aircraft carrier officer, stood in the vast hangar of the giant Enterprise Carrier Strike Group and informed the 1,700 crewmen and women assembled there that their ship would be dispatched to the Strait of Hormuz in March.
Panetta said: “… We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”
The Abraham Lincoln carrier tested Hormuz waters
The White House, which had fully approved Panetta's gesture, decided not to wait until March but to put Salami's words to the test forthwith by sending the Abraham Lincolnthrough the Strait of Hormuz that very night.
But first, President Obama put in urgent calls to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and to British Prime Minister David Cameron, and obtained their approval for British and French warships to enter the strategic strait in convoy with the Lincoln. As an extra precaution against trouble, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report that US Ambassador to Baghdad James Jeffrey contacted Hassan Danaifa, his Iranian opposite number in the Iraqi capital, and let him know that the US-led convoy would be crossing through the Strait of Hormuz shortly.
Ambassador Danaifar promised to pass the message to Tehran. When after a few hours, there was no answer from the Iranian government, Washington decided to take the silence as assent and ordered the Lincoln and escort to begin crossing through the Strait of Hormuz to the Persian Gulf.
The experiment paid off and Washington was encouraged to keep its secret exchanges with Tehran moving forward:
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that those exchanges are advancing on three tracks:
Channels through Baghdad, Ankara, Vienna
1. The Baghdad Track: Ambassadors Jeffrey and Danaifar have taken to meeting in the Green Zone of Baghdad every few days. Their conversations are exploratory, with each side demanding good faith gestures from the other to jump the dialogue forward.
Sources familiar with this track report that Ambassador Jeffrey holds up President Obama's message to Khamenei last month (through Turkish intermediaries, according to some sources; through Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, according to others, including Iranians), which the Iranian leader neglected to answer. The American diplomat insists on the Iranian leader replying to the US president's missive and relating to his proposals before confidence-building gestures are discussed.
Iranian lawmaker Hussein Naqavai claimed this week, “Obama proposed a red telephone between Tehran and Washington. This is an admission that Iran should be consulted on major international issues."
But this is precisely what Washington wishes to avoid: Reciprocal confidence-building gestures are not intended to convey United States recognition of Iran's pretensions as a regional superpower.
And, according to a Western source in the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration is also refusing to succumb to Iran's bagaining tactics for selling Persian carpets, i.e. the more a buyer simplifies the transaction to lower the price, the higher the Iranians climb.
2. The Turkish track: Tehran is not happy with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu acting as brokers, in view of their animosity towards Syria's Bashar Assad. However, they are keeping the Turkish track open in consideration of Erdogan's close ties with Obama, while at the same time stirring up trouble between him and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Tehran hopes that the dispute over the latter's persecution of Iraq's Sunni community will raise tensions enough to eventually undermine the Turkish track.
Back channels are not yet generating results
In the latest round of acrimony, Al Maliki accused Ankara of meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs, to which Erdogan retorted Tuesday, Jan. 24: “The idea that Turkey is interfering in your domestic affairs is a very ugly and unfortunate one. Mr. Maliki must know very well that if you initiate a period of clashes in Iraq based on sectarian strife, it is impossible for us to remain silent.”
3. The Viennese track: The miles of corridors at International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in the Austrian capital, are an ideal venue for backdoor, off-the-record encounters between American and Iranian diplomats. There, ideas can be freely proposed and unofficial papers traded concerning Iran's disputed nuclear program.
The three tracks have yet to produce results, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington and Iranian sources report.
Just as President Obama was pushing tough sanctions hard, managing this week to get the European Union to approve an oil embargo on Iran and a freeze on its central bank's assets, Washington and Tehran came to a quiet understanding: The new US and EU sanctions would only start taking effect on July 1, leaving six months for negotiations to get underway.
But there is still a way to go before this happens.
And both Washington and Tehran are already girding up for the dialogue to break down even after it starts, according to sources familiar with the calculations on both sides. At that point, the military option will resurface at full blast.
US preparations for a military flare-up are covered in the first article
Source-PacificRim International.com
Saudi Arabian History Past and Present
3/18/12 Update
By Anthony Summers and Dan ChristensenSpecial to msnbc.com
Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla.
“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said.
“One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.”
Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question -- one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress’s bipartisan inquiry released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety -- on President George W. Bush’s instructions.
Graham said the two classified FBI documents that he saw, dated 2002 and 2003, were prepared by an agent who participated in the Sarasota investigation. He said the agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was “rejected.”
Graham attempted in recent weeks to contact the agent, he said, only to find the man had been instructed by FBI headquarters not to talk.
FBI: 'No credible evidence'
The FBI-led investigation a decade ago focused on Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, who moved out of their home in the upscale, gated community of Prestancia, near Sarasota, and left the country in the weeks before 9/11. The couple left behind three cars and numerous personal belongings, such as furnishings, clothes, medicine and food, according to law enforcement records. After the 9/11 attacks, a concerned neighbor contacted the FBI.
Analysis of Prestancia gatehouse visitor logs and photographs of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home at 4224 Escondito Circle, according to a counterterrorism officer and former Prestancia administrator Larry Berberich. If that did occur, it will feed into suspicions that the hijackers had Saudi support -- a suspicion held by some official investigators but played down by the 9/11 Commission.
Al-Hijji, who now lives and works in London, recently called 9/11 “a crime against the USA and all humankind” and said he was “saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.” He also said it was “not true” that Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers visited him at his Sarasota home.
The FBI has backed up al-Hijji. After initially declining to comment, the bureau confirmed that it did investigate but said it found nothing sinister. Agents, however, have refused to answer reporters’ specific questions about its investigation or its findings about the Prestancia gate records.
The FBI reiterated its position in a Feb. 7 letter that denied a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records from its Sarasota probe. The denial said their release “could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
“At no time during the course of its investigation of the attacks, known as the PENTTBOM investigation, did the FBI develop credible evidence that connected the address at 4224 Escondito Circle, Sarasota, Florida, to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” wrote records section chief David M. Hardy.
Newly released Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents, however, state that an informant told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji had considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers. The informant, Wissam Hammoud, also said al-Hijji once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, an ex-Broward County resident and suspected al-Qaida operative on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Last September, FBI spokesmen also disputed Graham’s assertion that Congress was never told about the Sarasota investigation.
That prompted Graham to ask the FBI for assistance in locating in the National Archives the Sarasota-related files that were allegedly turned over to Congress. Instead, after what Graham said were two months in which the FBI was “either unwilling or unable” to help find the records, the bureau suddenly turned over two documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Graham once headed and where he still has access. It is those documents that Graham has said are inconsistent with the FBI denials.
Meeting abruptly canceled
Graham shared this development with the Obama White House, which responded by setting up a meeting between Graham and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce. According to the former senator, Joyce told Graham he “didn’t want to talk” about the Sarasota episode. Graham said he was assured, however, that he would shortly be shown material that supported the FBI’s denials, and a further meeting was arranged with an FBI aide.
In December, Graham said, the scheduled meeting was abruptly canceled and he was told he would be allowed no further access to FBI information about Sarasota.
Graham believes the joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks was not the only national investigative body kept in the dark about Sarasota. He said the co-chairs of the later 9/11 Commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have told him they also were unaware of it.
Kean, a former New Jersey governor, told Graham the commission would have “worked it hard,” because the hypothesis that the hijackers completed the planning alone was “implausible,” the former senator said.
Kean did not return several phone messages seeking comment. But Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, confirmed this month that he learned nothing about the Sarasota matter while serving as vice-chair of the 9/11 commission.
Graham sees the information now emerging about Sarasota as ominously similar to discoveries his inquiry made in California. Leads there indicated that the first two hijackers to reach the U.S., Saudis Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, received help first from a diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and then from two other Saudis, one of whom helped al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi find a place to live. Multiple sources told investigators they believed both the latter Saudis had been Saudi government agents.
Later, when 9/11 Commission staff gained limited access to these individuals in Saudi Arabia, the aides’ reaction was caustic. One memo described the testimony of one of them as “deceptive ... inconsistent ... implausible.” The testimony of another displayed an “utter lack of credibility,” it said.
Graham is troubled by what he sees as FBI headquarters’ apparent effort to conceal information, including the fact that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi lived for months in California in the home of a paid FBI informant. Even when that emerged, the FBI denied his inquiry access to the informant. Graham wonders if that was merely because of the bureau’s embarrassment, or because the informant knew something that “would be even more damaging were it revealed.”
The newly surfaced FDLE documents containing informant Hammoud’s troubling 2004 information about al-Hijji have reinforced Graham’s concerns because they conflict with the FBI’s public statements.
Hammoud’s statement that al-Hijji introduced him to Saudi terror suspect Shukrijumah is consistent with the report that Prestancia gate logs showed Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji house – and buttresses longstanding official suspicion that he was linked to the hijackers. When Mohamed Atta visited a federal immigration office in Miami to discuss a visa problem in May 2001, a 9/11 Commission footnote reports, a man who closely resembled Shukrijumah accompanied him.
Related story: Saudi who left Fla. before 9/11 considered bin Laden a 'hero,' informant told FBI in '04
Graham sees what he believes to be the suppression of evidence pointing to Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers as arising from the perceived advantages to the West, at the time and now, of keeping Saudi Arabia happy.
In late December, the U.S. announced a new $30 billion defense deal with the Saudis.
“This agreement serves to reinforce the strong enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro. “It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.”
Graham said he was taken aback by that announcement.
“I think that in the period immediately after 9/11 the FBI was under instructions from the Bush White House not to discuss anything that could be embarrassing to the Saudis,” he said. “It is more inexplicable why the Obama administration has been reticent to pursue the question of Saudi involvement. For both administrations, there was and continues to be an obligation to inform the American people through truthful information.”
Anthony Summers is co-author, with Robbyn Swan, of “The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden.” Dan Christensen edits the Miami-area investigative Website Broward Bulldog, in which this article first appeared.
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Welcome to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia's website. Launched more than a decade ago, saudiembassy.net provides news and information about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its people.
You can find information about Saudi Arabia's international policies, domestic programs, government, economy, laws, history, culture, social services and infrastructure, as well our religion, Islam. Or, visit the site to catch up on recent news about the Kingdom.
You can also obtain practical information about traveling to Saudi Arabia, such as contact information and how to apply for visas. I encourage you to visit saudiembassy.net and learn more about our country, which has undergone tremendous development in the past decades.
If there is something you do not find, please let us know and we will try to help you.
Adel A. Al-Jubeir
Ambassador
Read here below before proceeding, this gives the reader the incredible EVIL, and DISGUSTING evil nature of the Zionist Master Plan to Enslave the world.
The US has resorted to “any possible means”, ranging from implicit to explicit acts of enmity, to undermine the Iranian nation and break its resistance to subjugation, a political analyst tells Press TV.
In consonance with its animus-charged measures against the Islamic Republic, “a US court in Manhattan made a mockery of justice, issued a default judgment against Iran, and accused Tehran of being involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” Ismail Salami, a Middle East expert, said, citing one such anti-Iran push in an article published on Press TV on Tuesday.
Such an allegation “stands in stark contrast to reason in view of the plethora of evidence pointing with force and logic to the joint role of the CIA and the Mossad in the tragic incident,” he added.
On December 22, a US federal judge in Manhattan alleged that Iran, together with Taliban and al-Qaeda, had been involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The court, meanwhile, withdrew Saudi Arabia's name from the 10-year-old case, even though 15 of the 19 attackers were of Saudi nationality.
The Iranian author went on to say that the association of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Taliban and al-Qaeda was a move aimed to “further drag Iran into the margins of isolation.”
The US government's effort to incriminate Iran in the 9/11 case followed another attempt in early October, when the US Justice Department accused Tehran of involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
Pointing to the full-throttle push by Zionist top officials in Washington and Tel Aviv to devise anti-Iran scenarios, Salami noted, “Any time there is a new allegation against Iran, one should not ignore the prominent role the Zionist lobby plays in the matter. In this case too, a Zionist-funded Birmingham law firm had an important part to play in contributing to the warps and wefts of the plot.”
He further explained that the findings of the US- and Israeli-funded “Wiggins Childs Quinn & Pantazis” firm were based on its interviews with “'defectors from Iran's intelligence agencies', namely the members of the anti-Iran MKO [Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization] which is widely branded as a terrorist group and one which is readily available to corroborate the allegations leveled against the Islamic Republic.”
However, it goes without saying that “their henna is void of any valid color,” the Iranian expert insisted, referring to the testimonies of the MKO terrorists.
The allegations of Iran's involvement in the 9/11 attacks also come as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently removed the name of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar from the list of "most wanted terrorists."
Salami said the US efforts to bend Iran to its will “is gradually unfolding in every imaginable area ranging from sabotaging Iranian computer systems to hiring spies and assassins.”
In 2010, two Iranian nuclear scientists were killed in assassination attempts, which, upon comprehensive investigations, Iran's Intelligence Ministry traced back to Israel -- the United States main ally.
The ministry announced on December 13 that it had arrested a CIA agent of Iranian descent, named as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, foiling an intricate American plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian author also cautioned that “Washington's literature of threat shuts the window to any meaningful dialogue with Iran.” The Islamic Republic has always expressed readiness to hold negotiations with the United States and European countries on the basis of mutual respect and without any precondition in order to reach an understanding on the issues of mutual concern.
IRAN HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 911! AND YET THE STUPID AMERICAN SHEEPLE ARE BEING FED THE LIE THAT THEY WERE! WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE "THEY" DO IT AGAIN!
Map of Arabia at time of Muhammad
3/18/12 Update
By Anthony Summers and Dan ChristensenSpecial to msnbc.com
Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla.
“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said.
“One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.”
Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question -- one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress’s bipartisan inquiry released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety -- on President George W. Bush’s instructions.
Graham said the two classified FBI documents that he saw, dated 2002 and 2003, were prepared by an agent who participated in the Sarasota investigation. He said the agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was “rejected.”
Graham attempted in recent weeks to contact the agent, he said, only to find the man had been instructed by FBI headquarters not to talk.
FBI: 'No credible evidence'
The FBI-led investigation a decade ago focused on Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, who moved out of their home in the upscale, gated community of Prestancia, near Sarasota, and left the country in the weeks before 9/11. The couple left behind three cars and numerous personal belongings, such as furnishings, clothes, medicine and food, according to law enforcement records. After the 9/11 attacks, a concerned neighbor contacted the FBI.
Analysis of Prestancia gatehouse visitor logs and photographs of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home at 4224 Escondito Circle, according to a counterterrorism officer and former Prestancia administrator Larry Berberich. If that did occur, it will feed into suspicions that the hijackers had Saudi support -- a suspicion held by some official investigators but played down by the 9/11 Commission.
Al-Hijji, who now lives and works in London, recently called 9/11 “a crime against the USA and all humankind” and said he was “saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.” He also said it was “not true” that Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers visited him at his Sarasota home.
The FBI has backed up al-Hijji. After initially declining to comment, the bureau confirmed that it did investigate but said it found nothing sinister. Agents, however, have refused to answer reporters’ specific questions about its investigation or its findings about the Prestancia gate records.
The FBI reiterated its position in a Feb. 7 letter that denied a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records from its Sarasota probe. The denial said their release “could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
“At no time during the course of its investigation of the attacks, known as the PENTTBOM investigation, did the FBI develop credible evidence that connected the address at 4224 Escondito Circle, Sarasota, Florida, to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” wrote records section chief David M. Hardy.
Newly released Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents, however, state that an informant told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji had considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers. The informant, Wissam Hammoud, also said al-Hijji once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, an ex-Broward County resident and suspected al-Qaida operative on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Last September, FBI spokesmen also disputed Graham’s assertion that Congress was never told about the Sarasota investigation.
That prompted Graham to ask the FBI for assistance in locating in the National Archives the Sarasota-related files that were allegedly turned over to Congress. Instead, after what Graham said were two months in which the FBI was “either unwilling or unable” to help find the records, the bureau suddenly turned over two documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Graham once headed and where he still has access. It is those documents that Graham has said are inconsistent with the FBI denials.
Meeting abruptly canceled
Graham shared this development with the Obama White House, which responded by setting up a meeting between Graham and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce. According to the former senator, Joyce told Graham he “didn’t want to talk” about the Sarasota episode. Graham said he was assured, however, that he would shortly be shown material that supported the FBI’s denials, and a further meeting was arranged with an FBI aide.
In December, Graham said, the scheduled meeting was abruptly canceled and he was told he would be allowed no further access to FBI information about Sarasota.
Graham believes the joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks was not the only national investigative body kept in the dark about Sarasota. He said the co-chairs of the later 9/11 Commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have told him they also were unaware of it.
Kean, a former New Jersey governor, told Graham the commission would have “worked it hard,” because the hypothesis that the hijackers completed the planning alone was “implausible,” the former senator said.
Kean did not return several phone messages seeking comment. But Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, confirmed this month that he learned nothing about the Sarasota matter while serving as vice-chair of the 9/11 commission.
Graham sees the information now emerging about Sarasota as ominously similar to discoveries his inquiry made in California. Leads there indicated that the first two hijackers to reach the U.S., Saudis Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, received help first from a diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and then from two other Saudis, one of whom helped al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi find a place to live. Multiple sources told investigators they believed both the latter Saudis had been Saudi government agents.
Later, when 9/11 Commission staff gained limited access to these individuals in Saudi Arabia, the aides’ reaction was caustic. One memo described the testimony of one of them as “deceptive ... inconsistent ... implausible.” The testimony of another displayed an “utter lack of credibility,” it said.
Graham is troubled by what he sees as FBI headquarters’ apparent effort to conceal information, including the fact that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi lived for months in California in the home of a paid FBI informant. Even when that emerged, the FBI denied his inquiry access to the informant. Graham wonders if that was merely because of the bureau’s embarrassment, or because the informant knew something that “would be even more damaging were it revealed.”
The newly surfaced FDLE documents containing informant Hammoud’s troubling 2004 information about al-Hijji have reinforced Graham’s concerns because they conflict with the FBI’s public statements.
Hammoud’s statement that al-Hijji introduced him to Saudi terror suspect Shukrijumah is consistent with the report that Prestancia gate logs showed Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji house – and buttresses longstanding official suspicion that he was linked to the hijackers. When Mohamed Atta visited a federal immigration office in Miami to discuss a visa problem in May 2001, a 9/11 Commission footnote reports, a man who closely resembled Shukrijumah accompanied him.
Related story: Saudi who left Fla. before 9/11 considered bin Laden a 'hero,' informant told FBI in '04
Graham sees what he believes to be the suppression of evidence pointing to Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers as arising from the perceived advantages to the West, at the time and now, of keeping Saudi Arabia happy.
In late December, the U.S. announced a new $30 billion defense deal with the Saudis.
“This agreement serves to reinforce the strong enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro. “It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.”
Graham said he was taken aback by that announcement.
“I think that in the period immediately after 9/11 the FBI was under instructions from the Bush White House not to discuss anything that could be embarrassing to the Saudis,” he said. “It is more inexplicable why the Obama administration has been reticent to pursue the question of Saudi involvement. For both administrations, there was and continues to be an obligation to inform the American people through truthful information.”
Anthony Summers is co-author, with Robbyn Swan, of “The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden.” Dan Christensen edits the Miami-area investigative Website Broward Bulldog, in which this article first appeared.
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Saudi Ambassador Adel A. Al-Jubeir
Welcome to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia's website. Launched more than a decade ago, saudiembassy.net provides news and information about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its people.
You can find information about Saudi Arabia's international policies, domestic programs, government, economy, laws, history, culture, social services and infrastructure, as well our religion, Islam. Or, visit the site to catch up on recent news about the Kingdom.
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Adel A. Al-Jubeir
Ambassador
Read here below before proceeding, this gives the reader the incredible EVIL, and DISGUSTING evil nature of the Zionist Master Plan to Enslave the world.
The US has resorted to “any possible means”, ranging from implicit to explicit acts of enmity, to undermine the Iranian nation and break its resistance to subjugation, a political analyst tells Press TV.
In consonance with its animus-charged measures against the Islamic Republic, “a US court in Manhattan made a mockery of justice, issued a default judgment against Iran, and accused Tehran of being involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” Ismail Salami, a Middle East expert, said, citing one such anti-Iran push in an article published on Press TV on Tuesday.
Such an allegation “stands in stark contrast to reason in view of the plethora of evidence pointing with force and logic to the joint role of the CIA and the Mossad in the tragic incident,” he added.
On December 22, a US federal judge in Manhattan alleged that Iran, together with Taliban and al-Qaeda, had been involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The court, meanwhile, withdrew Saudi Arabia's name from the 10-year-old case, even though 15 of the 19 attackers were of Saudi nationality.
The Iranian author went on to say that the association of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Taliban and al-Qaeda was a move aimed to “further drag Iran into the margins of isolation.”
The US government's effort to incriminate Iran in the 9/11 case followed another attempt in early October, when the US Justice Department accused Tehran of involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
Pointing to the full-throttle push by Zionist top officials in Washington and Tel Aviv to devise anti-Iran scenarios, Salami noted, “Any time there is a new allegation against Iran, one should not ignore the prominent role the Zionist lobby plays in the matter. In this case too, a Zionist-funded Birmingham law firm had an important part to play in contributing to the warps and wefts of the plot.”
He further explained that the findings of the US- and Israeli-funded “Wiggins Childs Quinn & Pantazis” firm were based on its interviews with “'defectors from Iran's intelligence agencies', namely the members of the anti-Iran MKO [Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization] which is widely branded as a terrorist group and one which is readily available to corroborate the allegations leveled against the Islamic Republic.”
However, it goes without saying that “their henna is void of any valid color,” the Iranian expert insisted, referring to the testimonies of the MKO terrorists.
The allegations of Iran's involvement in the 9/11 attacks also come as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently removed the name of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar from the list of "most wanted terrorists."
Salami said the US efforts to bend Iran to its will “is gradually unfolding in every imaginable area ranging from sabotaging Iranian computer systems to hiring spies and assassins.”
In 2010, two Iranian nuclear scientists were killed in assassination attempts, which, upon comprehensive investigations, Iran's Intelligence Ministry traced back to Israel -- the United States main ally.
The ministry announced on December 13 that it had arrested a CIA agent of Iranian descent, named as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, foiling an intricate American plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian author also cautioned that “Washington's literature of threat shuts the window to any meaningful dialogue with Iran.” The Islamic Republic has always expressed readiness to hold negotiations with the United States and European countries on the basis of mutual respect and without any precondition in order to reach an understanding on the issues of mutual concern.
IRAN HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 911! AND YET THE STUPID AMERICAN SHEEPLE ARE BEING FED THE LIE THAT THEY WERE! WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE "THEY" DO IT AGAIN!
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy governed under strict Islamic laws of the Wahhabi sect, which regulate public behavior, especially for women and foreigners. Women cannot drive cars and have numerous other restrictions imposed on them, and the presence of on-Muslim foreigners is tolerated but often raises resentment.
The Arabian peninsula (Al-Jazira) is bounded by the Red Sea to the west, the Arabian Sea to the south and the Persian Gulf to the east. To the west, the Hijaz and Asir mountain ranges form a barrier from the sea. Further west, the Tihama is the coastal plain of the Red Sea. In the north, the An Nafud and 'Hamad deserts separate Saudi Arabia from Iraq and Jordan. The Rub' al Khali (empty quarter) in the southeast is a vast and generally impenetrable desert. An Nafud, a sea of enormous shifting sand dunes, was supposedly considered impenetrable until T.E. Lawrence crossed it in 1917 to attack Aqaba with his Arab allies.
The Arabs have been known in the Middle East at least since the time of Shalmanesser II in 853 BC. Arabia has been the home of several apparently distinct Semitic peoples in numerous tribes, all known as Arabs, for much of recorded history. The relatively high rainfall of Yemen and easy access to the sea made it the home of several prosperous kingdoms, including Saba (possibly the biblical Sheba), Himyar, Qataban, Minea (Ma'in) and Hadramaut. The Romans called Yemen Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia) The area was the source of frankincense and myrrh and also a relay point for spices coming from the East. An additional kingdom of Zufar was situated in the area of the modern Oman.
The north and center of the peninsula, corresponding to the Arabia Deserta of the Romans, have always been populated by nomadic tribes, in contrast to the sedentary south. For much of ancient history, Aramaic was apparently the dominant language in the northern regions, rather than Arabic. The desert is punctuated by oases where a sedentary way of life is possible, and which formed terminuses and way stations on caravan routes. Each town was located at an oasis, and was usually controlled and inhabited by several tribes who made a pact that allowed joint control of the oasis. In times of prosperity, differences between town and countryside were accentuated, and the caravans and the towns became targets of raids by relatively poorer Bedouin nomads.
The nomadic way of life and tribal organization of the interior of north and central Arabia made it difficult to form large stable political organizations. Two very well known but short-lived states were anchored outside the Arabian desert. About 100 AD, the Nabateans ruled a kingdom that stretched from Palestine to the Gulf at its greatest extent, with its capital in Petra, in what is now Jordan. The Nabateans declined and their kingdom in the West was taken over by the Romans. A second kingdom arose in the North with its capital in Palmyra, under Odenathus in 265, and flourished under his widow Zenobia. It flourished all too well however, and was extinguished by the Roman Emperor Aurelian in 273 after Zenobia proclaimed her son Athenodorus as Caesar Augustus. Two lesser known kingdoms in the interior were Li'hyan and Thamud. The Lakhmid, located in what is now Transjordan and Southern Arabia, was the first known kingdom to use Arabic as its official language. Its influence extended to the borders of South Arabia. The Kindah of western Central Arabia wrested control of much of Central Arabia from the Lakhmids in the 4th and 5th centuries AD but were forced back in 528. Two small protectorates of varying borders existed along the northern borders. Ghassan, along the border with Syria, was a Byzantine protectorate, and Hira, along the border with Persia (modern Iraq) was a Persian protectorate
The Hijaz formed part of an important trade route from the Mediterranean south to the Arabian sea, and Mecca was a key city on this route. Arabia profited from the animosity between the Roman and Persian empires, which closed more desirable east-west trade routes through Egypt. In 384 the Romans and Persians concluded a peace treaty. The trade route through the Hijaz was no longer needed and Arabia went into decline until 502, when the treaty was broken, and a new period of prosperity began for Arabia
Religion before Islam
Religion Before Islam - Before the advent of Islam, the different tribes of Arabia followed different varieties of paganism, and later many converted to Christianity and Judaism. Muhamed, who was to become the prophet of Islam, was born about 570 to the Banu Hashim family, reputable merchants in the tribe of Quraysh in Mecca. He began preaching a new monotheistic religion sometime before 622, and was forced to migrate from Mecca about 622 with his followers, in the Hegira. At Medina, Muhamed consolidated a power base and followers. By 630, the Muslims were strong enough to attack and capture Mecca. According to Muslim tradition, the attack took place only after the Quraysh had broken the treaty.
Muhamed
Muhamed - In 632, Muhamed died and was succeed by Abu Bakr, his father in law, followed by Umar, who was followed by Umar. Each ruler spread the rule of Islam, first consolidating its hold and Arabia, but rapidly expanding to Palestine (by 640), Syria, Persia and central Asia. Umar was succeeded by Uthman, who was succeeded by Muhamed's son-in-law Ali. Ali moved the capital outside Arabia to Kufa, in what is now Iraq. The further history of Islam is presented separately.
Mecca and Medina - Mecca remained the spiritual focus of Islam because it was the destination for the obligatory Haj pilgrimage. The city, however, lacked political or administrative importance even in the early Islamic period. Medina had been the main base of Muhamed's political and military administration and the capital of the early caliphs. Medina continued to be an administrative center and developed into something of an intellectual and literary one as well. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Medina became an important center for the codification of Islamic law.
Arabia in decline - As the center of Islamic and "Arab" civilization moved away from Arabia, order and culture receded, particular after the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, and later, after the overland trade routes were transferred to ocean shipping. When the Caliphate was powerful, it controlled the Hijaz and ensured the safety of pilgrims to Mecca. However, by the ninth centrury the Caliphate had been greatly weakened. The Hijaz fell under the sway of different tribes and factions. From about 967, the Hijaz was controlled by the the Hashemites, who claim direct descent from Ali, son-in-law of Muhamed, through his son Hussayn. They were the Sharifs of Mecca since 1201, though they became nominal tributaries of the Ottoman empire in the fifteenth century. The importance of Arabia as a trade route declined in the sixteenth century, as Europeans found ocean routes to the indies, but the Red Sea and the Hijaz still remained relatively prosperous and cosmopolitan. In the South East however, the Najd area was ruled by no one. The Najd was isolated. arid and barren, and was surrounded on three sides by deserts and separated from the Hijaz by mountains. The Bedouin tribes lived there in more or less total independence, and with little contact with the outside world. The Najd became the home of the Wahhabi Islamic sect and of the house of Saud that was to create modern Saudi Arabia.
The Saud family and the rise of the Wahhabis - The Saud family was established in Ad Diriyah, in the center of Najd, near the modern capital of Riyadh, where they had settled around 1500. The tribes of the Najd, relatively isolated from Islamic life, had resumed various pagan practices. Some of the Arabian tribes attributed to trees and rocks the same sort of power that the Shia venerate in the tombs of Imams. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (died 1792), initiated a comprehensive reform. He grew up in Uyaynah, an oasis in southern Najd, where he studied Hanbali Islamic law. He continued his studies in Medina and then went to Iraq and to Iran. In the late 1730s he returned to the Najd and began to write and preach against both Shia and local paganism. He focused on Muslim monotheism, and preached that there is only one God, who does not share power with anyone. His students called themselves muwahhidun (unitarians). Their detractors referred to them as "Wahhabis"--or "followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab."
Wahhab attached a militant political dimension to his preaching, attacking the Shia and attracting local sheikhs to his cause. He won over some local leaders in Uyaynah and destroying some shrines there with the assistance of the Saud family, but was obliged to leave that town because of Shi'a pressure, and headed for Ad Diriyah, where he was welcomed by the Saud family. In 1744 Muhammad ibn Saud, head of the family, and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, swore a traditional Muslim oath promising to work together to establish a state based on Islamic principles.
By 1765, when he died, Muhammad ibn Saud's forces had established Wahhabism and the authority of the Saud family, over most of Najd. His son, Abd al Aziz, continued the Wahhabi advance. In 1801 the Al Saud-Wahhabi armies attacked and sacked the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, Iraq. In 1802 or 1803 they advanced on the Hijaz. In Mecca and Medina they destroyed monuments and grave markers used for prayer to Muslim saints and for votive rituals, which they consider acts of polytheism, just as Muhamed had supposedly destroyed pagan idols in Mecca. The Wahhabi advance to the Hijaz alarmed the ruler of Egypt, Muhamad Ali. In 1812 (some say 1816) he sent his son Tursun to the Hijaz, and later joined him. On the Saudi side, Abd Allah ibn Saud ibn Abd al Aziz who faced the invading Egyptian army, but was rapidly defeated, and then pursued to Al Diriyah and evicted from there in 1818.The Wahhabis and the Saud family retreated to Riyadh, which became their capital in 1824. Subsequently the Sauds ruled Riyadh and a variable territory around it. However, interfamily rivalry and frequent civil wars weakened them. In 1890 Muhammad ibn Rashid, put effective control of Riyadh, into the hands of his own garrison commander, Salim ibn Subhan ruling through a Saud family puppet. When the puppet ruler, Abd ar Rahman attempted to exert his authority, he was driven out of Riyadh. The Saud family fled to Kuwait.
Creation of Modern Saudi Arabia - In 1902, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud began battling his way back to power in the Najd and Riyadh, and by 1905 or 1906, the Ottomans had recognized him as their client in the Najd, and he was recognized as the Wahhabi imam. He continued his advances, aided by the Ikhwan brotherhood. The Ikhwan were Wahhabi Bedouin who had gathered into Hujjar - agricultural settlements geared for war. By 1913 Abd al Aziz's had thrown the Ottomans out of Al Hufuf in eastern Arabia. Abdul Aziz's advance was during WW I. He sat by while the Hashemite family, aided and encouraged by the British, revolted against the Turks. After the war, ibn Saud resumed his advance, capturing the Jebel Shammar in 1921, Mecca in 1924 and Medina in 1925. In 1932 he renamed renamed his Kingdom Saudi Arabia.
Suppresion of the Ikhwan - Ibn Saud had trouble controlling the Ikhwan, who were too eager to attack the Hashemites, clients of the British and enemies of the Wahhabi, and who had no tolerance for necessary twentieth century innovations, including all machines and telegraph as well as the presence of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, forbidden by tradition. The Ikhwan remained eager to force reform on others, which led them to attack non-Wahhabi Muslims, and even Wahhabis, both in Saudi and in Iraq. When the Wahhabi forces continued to ignore his authority, Ibn Saud defeated them in battle in 1929. However, the conflict between the most extreme forces in Wahhabism and the more pragmatic strain was never completely resolved. Saudi ulema remained suspicious of foreign inventions. For example, they first opposed radio as a suspect modern innovation for which there was no basis in the Qur'an and the Hadiths, but were reconciled when Abd al Aziz demonstrated that the radio could be used to broadcast the Qur'an. Wahhabi rule remains strict in Saudi Arabia. No foreigners can become citizens. Women cannot get drivers licenses and cannot perform legal and financial procedures on their own. Alcohol is forbidden in the kingdom.
Discovery of oil - Beginning in the 1930s, the ARAMCO consortium, including Standard Oil of California and other firms, that had gotten oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, discovered huge quantities of petroleum. Saudi oil is close to the surface and therefore it is very cheap to extract. The discovery of oil transformed the kingdom and gave it, and the entire Gulf Region extraordinary strategic importance in World War II and thereafter. However, in large part, oil revenues contributed to the fortunes of the Saud family, who rule as absolute monarchs, and did not produce a concomitant social revolution and modern development such as occurred in some of the Gulf countries.
King Saud - King Abdul Aziz died in 1953, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Saud. Saud was a spendthrift and political adventurer. His support for Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt alienated the US and British, his traditional allies. A 1957 visit by Saud to the United States raised eyebrows there due to his ostentatious lifestyle. His huge retinue, sumptuous feasts and conspicuous consumption by family members were widely reported. However, the visit served to cement a strategic friendship with the United States that has largely survived intact to present times.
In March 1958, economic problems forced Saud to transfer legislative and executive powers to the prime minister, his brother Crown Prince Faisal, but shortly thereafter, Saud reassumed control of the government from Faisal. The union of Syria and Egypt alarmed the Saud family, who feared that they would be swept away on a tide of Arab nationalism, and there were rumors that Saud had conspired to assassinate Nasser. The kingdom also had to deal with the effects of the civil war in Yemen that raged in the 1960s. Saud was forced to abdicate in 1964 owing to fiscal profligacy. On November 2, 1964 Prince Faisal became king, designating his half-brother, Prince Khalid ibn Abdul, as his successor. Saud tried unsuccessfully to subvert the Saudi government from his exile in Cairo.
King Faisal - Faisal was a spartan and observant monarch, raised in the Wahhabi tradition by his mother, a scion of the Wahhabi clan. However, in addition to improved fiscal responsibility and relative austerity, Faisal introduced innovations such as television, inciting the opposition of conservative elements in the kingdom. Faisal is credited with abolishing slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1962. He was also active in foreign affairs. Faisal helped bankroll the PLO and other anti-Israel ventures, and following the disastrous defeat of the Arabs in the 6-day war, he set up a special compensation fund for Arab countries that had suffered in the war. He initiated the oil embargo that followed the 1973 October war (Yom Kippur war). The boycott and the organization of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) as a coordinated monopoly tripled and quadrupled the price of oil. Saudi Arabia, as the world's largest exporter of oil, benefited from new found prosperity. However, Faisal was assassinated in 1975 by his nephew, and Khalid became king.
King Khalid - Khalid continued the process of modernization and under his rule Saudi Arabia initiated several foreign policy initiatives through Crown Prince Fahd. Fahd assumed a key role in the government because of Khalid's failing health. In 1979, Saudi Arabia was rocked by fundamentalist Sunni riots in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, initiated by those who felt the kingdom had become too liberal. Over 500 dissidents invaded and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca on November 20. The leader of the dissidents, Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba, belonged to an important Najd family. His ancestors had been soldiers and comrades of Abd al Aziz ibn Saud. Juhaiman charged that the Saud family had become steeped in corruption, ostentation, and imitation of the West, echoing the rhetoric of the Ayatollah Khomeini's diatribes against the shah in Iran. The rioters shot and killed a guard in the Mosque, a holy place, where bloodshed is punishable by crucifixion. It was not possible to dislodge them by force until the Ulema issued a special Fatwa (religious decree) permitting bloodshed in the holy precincts.
Riots and disturbances - Later in 1979 and in 1980 there were riots in the eastern Shi'a areas, due to economic discrimination and neglect, and possibly due to incitement from neighboring Iran, which had undergone a fundamentalist Shi'a revolution in 1979. The rioters carried picture of Khomeini. The area is sensitive because of oil production facilities that are easily sabotaged, run by Aramco, which employs many Shi'ites. The government responded with massive repression, but later provided a special economic development package for these areas.
Saudi Peace initiative - Saudi Arabia responded to the Egyptian peace negotiations with Israel by breaking diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1979. However in 1981, Crown Prince Fahd offered a peace plan of his own. The Fahd peace plan, envisioned a comprehensive settlement that included the creation of a Palestinian state and Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
King Fahd - King Khalid died in 1982 and was succeeded by Fahd, who designated Abdullah as crown prince. Saudi Arabia apparently cooperated with the United States in keeping oil prices low in the 80s in order to hurt Soviet energy trade and bring down the Soviet economy. Saudi Arabia was a in a unique position to do so because it has vast reserves and because extraction of Saudi oil costs about a dollar a barrel. Extraction of Russian oil costs about $18 a barrel; oil prices must be higher than that figure to make extraction possible. The Saudis are thought to have used their reserves and tremendous capacity to maintain an over-supply of oil on the world market and force the Soviets out. Falling oil prices allowed Saudi Arabia to dismiss some of the foreigners employed in the kingdom. However, the fall in oil prices ultimately hurt the Saudi economy.
In 1991, the kingdom accepted comparatively large numbers of US troops, and was a base for US operations against Iraq. who remained in the kingdom after the end of Desert Storm, angering traditionalists. At the same time, the Saudi government and members of the Saudi family have been bankrolling extremist groups such as the Palestinian Hamas as well as Central Asian groups such as Hizb ut Tahrir, and paying for Islamic schools that are often hot beds of fundamentalism.
Osama Bin Laden, a dissident member of a rich Saudi family, is credited with a key role in organizing the successful overthrow of the Soviet-backed Afghanistan government with the support of the US Central Intelligence Agency. Some say he was also aided by Saudi Prince Turki-El-Feisal, then head of the Saudi intelligence services. Bin Laden became an implacable fundamentalist foe of the United States, and his Al-Qaeda network planned and executed the terror attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. The major stated reason for Bin-Laden's hostility to the US is the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Many of the attackers were of Saudi origin, and subsequent revelations about Saudi support of Islamic and Islamist fundamentalist groups have strained relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In 2002, against the background of the second Palestinian Intifada and the looming war in Iraq, Crown Prince Abdullah initiated an Arab peace plan quite similar to the one offered by Crown Prince Fahd in 1981. The former plan had foundered on the resistance of Syria and other hard-line states. This plan was accepted at an Arab summit conference in Beirut.
The Saudi regime was rocked in 2003 by Al-Qaeda engineered explosions that took place in Riyadh in May and November, as well as riots demanding reform by both traditionalists and democratic reformers. The unrest was met with arrests and force, but also with promises of reform. The regime sponsored a forum on reform. State-supported preachers issued Fatwas (religious edits) enjoining against violence between Muslims and suicide attacks.
Ami Isseroff
Source-Mideast web.org
Jewish Roots of Saudi Arabia
Source-The House of Saud
RESEARCH AND PRESENTATION OF: MOHAMMAD SAKHER , who was ordered killed by the Saudi Regime for the following findings:
1. Are the Saudi Family members belonging to the Tribe of ANZA BEN WA'EL as they allege to be?
2. Is Islam their actual religion?
3. Are they of an ARAB ORIGIN at all?
In the year 851 A.H. a group of men from AL MASALEEKH CLAN, which was a branch of ANZA Tribe, formed a caravan for buying cereals (wheat and corn) and other food stuff from IRAQ, and transporting it back to NAJD. The head of that group was a man called SAHMI BIN HATHLOOL. The caravan reached BASRA, where the members of the group went to a cereal merchant who was a Jew, Called MORDAKHAI BIN IBRAHIM BIN MOSHE'. During their bargaining with that merchant, the Jew asked them : "Where are you from?" They answered: "From ANZA TRIBE; a clan of AL MASALEEKH." Upon hearing that name, the Jew started to hug so affectionately each one of them saying that he, himself, was also from the clan of AL MASALEEKH, but he had come to reside in BASRA (IRAQ) in consequence to a family feud between his father and some members of ANZA Tribe.
After he recounted to them his fabricated narrative, he ordered his servants to load all the camels of the clan's members with wheat, dates and tamman; a remarkable deed so generous that astonished the MASALEEKH men and aroused their pride to find such an affectionate (cousin) in IRAQ- the source of their sustenance; they believed each word he said , and , because he was a rich merchant of the food commodities which they were badly in need, they liked him (even though he was a Jew concealed under the garb of an Arab from AL MASALEEKH clan).
When the caravan was ready to depart returning to NAJD, that Jewish Merchant asked them to accept his company, because he intended to go with them to his original homeland, NAJD. Upon hearing that from him, they wholeheartedly welcomed him with a very cheerful attitude.
So that (concealed) Jew reached NAJD with the caravan. In NAJD, he started to promulgate a lot of propaganda for himself through his companions (his alleged cousins), a fact, which gathered around him a considerable number of new supporters; but, unexpectedly, he confronted a campaign of opposition to his views led by SHEIKH SALEH SALMAN ABDULLA AL TAMIMI, who was a Muslem religious preacher in AL-QASEEM. The radius of his preaching area included Najd, Yemen, and Hijaz, a fact which compelled the Jew (the Ancestor of the present SAUDI FAMILY to depart from AL QASEEM to AL IHSA, where he changed his name (MORDAKHAI) To MARKHAN BIN IBRAHIM MUSA. Then he changed the location of his residence and settled at a place called DIR'IYA near AL-QATEEF, where he started to spread among the inhabitants a fabricated story about the shield of our Prophet MOHAMMAD (p.b.u.h), that it was taken as a booty by an Arab Pagan in consequence of OHOD Battle between the Arab pagans and the Muslems. "That shield, he said, was sold by the Arab Pagan to a Jewish Clan called BANU QUNAIQA' who preserved it as a treasure! He gradually enhanced his position among the Bedouins through such stories which indicated how the Jewish clans in Arabia were so influential and deserved high esteem. He gained some personal importance among the Bedouins, and decided to settle permanently there, at DIR'IYA town, near AL QATEEF, which he decided to be his (Capital) on the Persian Gulf. He aspired to make it his spring board for establishing a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia.
In order to fulfill his ambitious scheme, he started to approach the desert Arab Bedouins for support of his position, them gradually, he declared himself as their king!
At that juncture, AJAMAN Tribe together with BANU KHALED Tribe became fully aware of that Jewish cunning plan after they had verified his true identity, and decided to put an end to him. They attacked his town and conquered it, but before arresting him he had escaped by the skin of his teeth.
That Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY, (MORDAKHAI), sought shelter in a farm called at that time AL-MALIBEED-GHUSAIBA near AL-ARID, which is called at our present time : AL-RIYADH.
He requested the owner of that farm to grant him an asylum. The farmer was so hospitable that he immediately gave him sanctuary. But that Jew (MORDAKHAI), no longer than a month had he stayed there, when he assassinated the land lord and all members of his family, pretending that all were killed by an invading band of thieves. Then he pretended that he had bought that real estate from them before that catastrophe happened to them! Accordingly, he had the right to reside there as a land lord. He then gave a new name to that place: He named it AL-DIRIYA - the same name as that he had lost.
That Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY (MORDAKHAI), was quick to establish a "GUEST HOUSE" called "MADAFFA" on the land he usurped from his victims, and gathered around him a group of hypocrites who started to spread out false propaganda for him that he was a prominent Arab Sheikh. He plotted against Sheikh SALEH SALMAN ABDULLA AL TAMIMI, his original enemy, and caused his assassination in the mosque of the town called (AL-ZALAFI).
After that, he felt satisfied and safe to make (AL-DIRIYA) his permanent home. There he practiced polygamy at a wide scale, and indeed, he begot a lot of children whom he gave pure Arab names.
Eversince his descendants grew up in number and power under the name of SAUDI CLAN, they have followed his steps in practicing under ground activities and conspiracies against the Arab Nation. They illegally seized rural sectors and farm lands, and assassinated every person who tried to oppose their evil plans. They used all kinds of deceit for reaching their goals: they bought the conscience of their dissidents; they offered their women and money to influential people in that area, particularly to those who started to write the true biography of that Jewish Family; they bribed writers of history in order to purify their ignominious history, and make their lineage related to the most prominent Arab Tribes such as RABI'A, ANZA and ALMASALEEKH.
A conspicuous hypocrite in our era whose name is MOHAMMAD AMIN AL TAMIMI- Director/Manager of the contemporary Libraries of the SAUDI KINGDOM, made up a genealogical tree (FAMILY TREE) for this JEWISH FAMILY (THE SAUDIS), connecting them to our Great Prophet, MOHAMMAD (P.B.U.H) For his false work, he received a reward of 35 (THIRTY FIVE) THOUSAND EYPTIAN POUNDS from the then SAUDI AMBASSADOR TO CAIRO, EGYPT, in the year 1362 AH.- 1943 A.D. The name of that Ambassador is : IBRAHIM AL-FADEL.
As aforementioned, the Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY, (MORDAKHAI), practiced polygamy by marrying a lot of Arab women and begot many children; his polygamous practice is, at the present time, being carried out " to the letter" by his descendants; they cling to his marital heritage!
One of MORDAKHAI'S sons called AL-MAQARAN, arabized from the Jewish root (MACK-REN) begot a son called Mohammad, then another son called SAUD, which is the name of the present day SAUDI DYNASTY.
Descendants of SAUD (the present day SAUDI FAMILY )started a campaign of assassination of the prominent leaders of the Arab Tribes under the pretence that those leaders were apostates; renegading from the Islamic Religion, and deserting their Koranic doctrines; so they deserved the SAUDI condemnation and slaughter!
In the History Book of the SAUDI FAMILY pages (98-101), their private family historian declares that the SAUDI DYNASTY considers all the people of NAJD blasphemous; so their blood must be shed, their properties confiscated, and their females be taken as concubines; no muslem is authentic in his /her belief unless he/she belongs (affiliates) to the sect of MOHAMMAD BIN ABDUL WAHAB, (whose origins are also Jewish from TURKEY.) His doctrines give authority to the SAUDI FAMILY to destroy the villages with all their inhabitants-males including children, and to sexually assault their women; stab the bellies of the pregnant, and cut off the hands of their children, then burn them! They are further authorized by such a BRUTAL DOCTRINE to plunder all the properties of whom they call renegades (not following there Wahabi sect.)
Their hideous Jewish Family has, in fact, done all that kind of atrocities in the name of their false religious sect (the Wahabi), which has actually been invented by a Jew so as to sow the seeds of terror in the hearts of people in towns and villages. This Jewish Dynasty has been committing such brutal atrocities eversince 1163 A.H. They have named the whole Arabian Peninsula after their family name (SAUDI ARABIA) as if the whole region is their own personal real estate, and that all other inhabitants are their mere servants or slaves, toiling day and night for the pleasure of their masters (THE SAUDI FAMILY).
They are completely holding the natural wealth of the country as their own property. If any poor person from the common people raises his/her voice complaining against any of the despotic rules of this Jewish Dynasty, (the Dynasty) cuts off his/her head in the public square. A princess of theirs once visited FLORIDA, USA, with her retinue; she rented 90 (NINETY) Suite rooms in a Grand Hotel for about One Million Dollars a night! Can anyone of their subjects comment about that extravagant event If he/she does, his/her fate is quite known: DEATH WITH THE EDGE OF THE SAUDI SWORD IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE!!!!!!
Witnesses on the Jewish Ancestry of this Saudi Family:
In the 1960's the "SAWT AL ARAB" Broadcasting Station in Cairo, Egypt, and the YEMEN Broadcasting Station in SANA'A confirmed the Jewish Ancestry of the SAUDI Family.
King FAISAL AL-SAUD at that time could not deny his family's kindred with the JEWS when he declared to the WASHINGTON POST on Sept. 17, 1969 stating: "WE, THE SAUDI FAMILY, are cousins of the Jews: we entirely disagree with any Arab or Muslem Authority which shows any antagonism to the Jews; but we must live together with them in peace. Our country (ARABIA) is the Fountain head from where the first Jew sprang, and his descendants spread out all over the world." That was the declaration of KING FAISAL AL-SAUD BIN ABDUL AZIZ!!!!!
HAFEZ WAHBI, The SAUDI Legal Adviser, mentioned in his book entitled: "THE PENINSULA OF ARABIA" that KING ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD, who died in 1953, had said : "Our Message (SAUDI MESSAGE) encountered the opposition of all Arab Tribes; my grandfather, SAUD AWAL, once imprisoned a number of the Sheikhs of MATHEER Tribe; and when another group of the same tribe came to intercede for the release of the prisoners, SAUD AWAL gave orders to his men to cut off the heads of all the prisoners, then, he wanted to humiliate and derogate the interceders by inviting them to eat from a banquet he prepared from the cooked flesh of his victims whose cut off heads he placed on the top of the food platters!! The interceders became so alarmed and declined to eat the flesh of their relatives; and, because of their refusal to eat, he ordered his men to cut off their heads too. That hideous crime was committed by that self imposed king to innocent people whose guilt was their opposition to his most cruel and extremely despotic rules.
HAFEZ WAHBI, states further that King ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD related that bloody true story to the Sheikhs of the MATHEER Tribe, who visited him in order to intercede for their prominent leader at that time, FAISAL AL DARWEESH, who was the king's prisoner. He related that story to them in order to prevent them from interceding for the release of their Sheikh; otherwise, they would face the same fate; He killed the Sheikh and used his blood as an ablution liquid for him just before he stood up for his prayer (after the false sect doctrine of the Wahabi); The guilt of FAISAL DARWEESH at that time was that he had criticized King ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD when the king signed the document which the English Authorities prepared in 1922 as a declaration for giving PALESTINE to the Jews; his signature was obtained in the conference held at AL AQEER in 1922.
That was and still is the system of this Regime of the JEWISH FAMILY (SAUDI FAMILY): All its goals are : plundering the wealth of the country, robbing, falsifying, and committing all kinds of atrocity, iniquity, and blasphemy-all are executed in compliance with their self invented Wahabi Sect which legalizes the chopping of the heads of their opposing subjects.
Source-Anngirfan.blogspot.com/Jewish Saudi Arabia
Jewish Saudi Arabia-The Donmeh(Crypto Jews)
The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part I)
Wayne MADSEN | 25.10.2011 | 20:39
Part 1 Wayne Madsen Report
There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. It is a factor that is generally only whispered about at diplomatic receptions, news conferences, and think tank sessions due to the explosiveness and controversial nature of the subject. And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran…
Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.
The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the Messiah but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan.
Part 2 The Donmeh
Saudi Arabia Present Day
Riyadh Saudi Arabia
CIA World Factbook
Economy
Economy - overview:
Saudi Arabia has an oil-based economy with strong government controls over major economic activities. It possesses about one-fifth of the world's proven petroleum reserves, ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum, and plays a leading role in OPEC. The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 80% of budget revenues, 45% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings. Saudi Arabia is encouraging the growth of the private sector in order to diversify its economy and to employ more Saudi nationals. Diversification efforts are focusing on power generation, telecommunications, natural gas exploration, and petrochemical sectors. Almost 6 million foreign workers play an important role in the Saudi economy, particularly in the oil and service sectors, while Riyadh is struggling to reduce unemployment among its own nationals. Saudi officials are particularly focused on employing its large youth population, which generally lacks the education and technical skills the private sector needs. Riyadh has substantially boosted spending on job training and education, most recently with the opening of the King Abdallah University of Science and Technology - Saudi Arabia's first co-educational university. As part of its effort to attract foreign investment, Saudi Arabia acceded to the WTO in December 2005 after many years of negotiations. The government has begun establishing six "economic cities" in different regions of the country to promote foreign investment and plans to spend $373 billion between 2010 and 2014 on social development and infrastructure projects to advance Saudi Arabia's economic development.
GDP (purchasing power parity):
$676.7 billion (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 24
$635.6 billion (2010 est.)
$610.3 billion (2009 est.)
note: data are in 2011 US dollars
GDP (official exchange rate):
$560.3 billion (2011 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
6.5% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 33
4.1% (2010 est.)
0.1% (2009 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP):
$24,000 (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 55
$23,100 (2010 est.)
$22,900 (2009 est.)
note: data are in 2011 US dollars
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 2.1%
industry: 67.6%
services: 30.4% (2011 est.)
Labor force:
7.63 million
country comparison to the world: 61
note: about 80% of the labor force is non-national (2011 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 6.7%
industry: 21.4%
services: 71.9% (2005 est.)
Unemployment rate:
10.9% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 117
10.8% (2010 est.)
note: data are for Saudi males only (local bank estimates; some estimates range as high as 25%)
Population below poverty line:
NA%
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%
Investment (gross fixed):
19.2% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 130
Budget:
revenues: $293.1 billion
expenditures: $210.6 billion (2011 est.)
Taxes and other revenues:
52.3% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 14
Budget surplus (+) or deficit (-):
14.7% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 5
Public debt:
9.4% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 122
16.6% of GDP (2010 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
5% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 117
5.4% (2010 est.)
Central bank discount rate:
2.5% (31 December 2008)
Commercial bank prime lending rate:
7.2% (31 December 2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 139
7.2% (31 December 2010 est.)
Stock of narrow money:
$205.9 billion (31 December 2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 18
$166.8 billion (31 December 2010 est.)
Source-Saudi Interior Ministry
Coast to Coast Radio Show 2/11/12
COAST TO COAST RADIO SHOW 9-21-11 part 1 Saudi Arabia Conspiracy against America
Part 2
Saudi Arabia and 911
911 Review
Alleged Hijackers
According to the official story, teams of four and five hijackers armed only with primitive weapons (boxcutters) overcame the flight crews of four out of four flights and then proceeded to fly three of the four planes into The World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
The alleged hijackers supposedly belonged to semi-autonomous cells, having been in the United States for months and years. The cells were directed by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden.
The hijacker story had a great deal of appeal to the American audience. The hijackers were all Muslim extremists, far removed from mainstream American culture. Their fanaticism made their success against overwhelming odds seem more plausible.
Despite its attractive features, the hijacker story is challenged by many facts, especially relating to the implausability that they could have performed all of the tasks attributed to them by the official story. However, a mantra of "no Muslum hijackers" has become a staple of some skeptics of the official story based primarily on the following arguments:
There is a lack of credible evidence that the alleged hijackers were on any of the four planes.
Passenger manifests for each of the four flights lacked any Arab names.
Several alleged hijackers reported themselves alive following the attack.
The behavior of several of the alleged hijackers prior to the attack was inconsistent with Muslum beliefs and practices. 1
Each of these four arguments has been challenged and discredited to some degree. Argument 1 requires dismissing the many reported phone calls from the planes as evidence of hijackers. Implausible theories of phone-call fakery have been advanced to discount the numerous reported calls from Flight 93 in particular. Argument 2 has been exposed as based on mischaracterizing victims lists, published in the media shortly after the attack, as passenger manifests. Around the time of the Moussaoui trial, a list of alleged passenger manifests was released to a reporter by the FBI, and those lists contain Arab names. Argument 3 has been eviscerated somewhat by the BBC essentially repudiating its original reports in 2006. Argument 4 has been challenged by questioning the credibility of news reports describing carousing behavior.
These arguments have tended to eclipse analysis of the official hijacking scenario that show it to be highly implausible operationally. The following arguments go to the implausibility of the official account without excluding the possibility that there were Arab-looking men on the planes, perhaps in the role of patsies.
None of the alleged hijackers were good pilots, and none had flown jet airplanes, let alone large jetliners. Yet they are supposed to have piloted jetliners into their targets with apparent "surgical strike" precision.
The staggered flight times and long flight paths of the targeted jetliners exposed the plan to certain defeat, had the air defense system been allowed to function normally.
According to the official account, four flight crews were defeated, and the pilots removed from their seats by bands of four or five hijackers using only "boxcutters", despite several of the airline pilots being Vietnam combat veterans.
Not one of the flight crews radioed distress or punched in the four-digit hijack code. 2
The silent takeovers of each of the jetliners proceeded despite alerts raised by the hijacking of Flight 11 being communicated to pilots of the remaining flights.
Not a "Single Piece of Paper" Links Alleged Hijackers to Plot
Most of the above facts are never acknowledged by government agencies or mainstream media. However, FBI director Robert Mueller did admit that his agency failed to find "a single piece of paper" linking the alleged hijackers to the 9/11/01 plot.
Sourc-physics911.net/no arabs flight 11
Amanda Keller Mohammed Attas Stripper Girlfriend
Source-gawker.com/Mysterious Saudi Family in U.S. disappears two weeks before 911
Did you know that a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Fla., that met with 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta disappeared without a trace—leaving behind their cars, food, and furniture—two weeks before the attacks? Neither did Congress, or the 9/11 Commission! The FBI didn't think to tell them.
It's amazing what stuff starts coming out ten years later. You'd think that 9/11 was one of the most picked-over events in history, with thousands of journalists, intelligence agents, and investigators poring over every aspect of the attacks. Not really! Some recorded radio communications from that day are just coming to light now. And today we learn that a Saudi family that actually met with Atta up and disappeared without a trace just days before the attacks, something that the FBI investigated but never bothered to tell Congress or the 9/11 Commission. Writing for the Miami Herald, Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen report:
Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, Fla., leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter - and an open safe in a master bedroom....
The couple, living with their small children at the three-bedroom house at 4224 Escondito Circle, had left in a hurry in a white van, probably on Aug. 30.
They abandoned three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway....
Berberich and a senior counterterrorism agent said they were able to get into the abandoned house, ultimately finding "there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms ... all the toiletries still in place ... all their clothes hanging in the closet ... TVs ... opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house ... the pool running, with toys in it."
"The beds were made ... fruit on the counter ... the refrigerator full of food. ... It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie. ... (But) the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. ... A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they'd taken (another) computer and left the cord."
Big deal, right? Who cares if some Saudi citizens happened to decide to go home, or move somewhere else, in late August 2001? Well, their neighbors found it suspicious, and one of them called the FBI on the day of the attacks to report the departure. And it turns out the couple, Anoud and Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, had ties to the 9/11 hijackers.
[A] counterterrorism officer, who requested his name not be disclosed, said agents went on to make troubling discoveries: Phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escondito Circle to the hijackers....
The counterterrorism agent said records of incoming and outgoing calls made at the Escondito house were obtained from the phone company under subpoena.
Agents were able to conduct a link analysis, a system of tracking calls based on dates, times and length of conversations—finding the Escondito calls dating back more than a year, "lined up with the known suspects."
The links were not just to Atta and his hijack pilots, the agent said, but to 11 other terrorist suspects, including Walid al-Shehhri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.
Another was Adnan Shukrijumah, a former Miramar, Fla., resident identified as having been with Atta in the spring of 2001. Shukrijumah is still at large and is on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
OK, you're saying, sure: A "link analysis" connects them to the hijackers. But the FBI can link Atta to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach if it wants to. So they called someone who called someone who called a hijacker. What does that prove?
But it was the gate records at the Prestancia development that produced the most telltale information. People who arrived by car had to give their names and the home's address they were visiting. Gate staff would sometimes ask to see a driver's license and note the name, Berberich said. More importantly, he added, the license plates of cars pulling through the gate were photographed.
Atta is known to have used variations of his name, but the license plate of the car he owned was on record.
The vehicle and name information on Atta and Jarrah fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit the home at 4224 Escondito Circle, said Berberich and the counterterrorism officer.
So there you have it: The FBI had photos of Mohammed Atta's car driving to visit a Saudi family that suddenly disappeared mysteriously just days before Atta executed the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history and the bureau never told anyone about it. Totally unrelated: The only major redaction in the 9/11 Commission report was a 28-page section spelling out connections between the hijackers and Saudi elites. I can't wait until the 20th anniversary, when we'll get to find out more. Happy 9/11 Day!
SAUDI GIP(Intelligence Agency of Saudi Arabia)
Source-Foreign Policy
PRINCE MUQRIN BIN ABDUL-AZIZ-Current Saudi Chief of Intelligence
Position: Director general of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency (GIP)
Career: The youngest son of the Saudi kingdom's founder, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz lived in relative anonymity for the first 60 years of his life. Born in 1945 and educated in the West, Prince Muqrin served in the Royal Saudi Air Force and as governor of several Saudi provinces, including al-Madinah, whose capital is the holy city of Medina. In 2005, he was tapped by his half brother King Abdullah to head the GIP, a daunting task given his lack of intelligence experience and the long shadow of his predecessors, among them legendary chief Prince Turki bin Faisal.
Influence: Despite his inexperience, Muqrin's star has risen quickly in the past three years as he has become a versatile point man for King Abdullah. Muqrin's responsibilities include managing Riyadh's critical Pakistan and Afghanistan portfolio. He has been a regular visitor to Islamabad, maintaining the kingdom's relationships with a wide array of Pakistani political leaders. As for Afghanistan, Muqrin was dispatched to Kabul in January to meet leading officials, including President Hamid Karzai.
The prince might have had an ulterior motive: News reports suggest that the trip was part of Muqrin's overall campaign to bring Taliban leaders into talks with Kabul, suggesting that Muqrin is continuing his predecessor's policy of maintaining contact with Taliban leaders. A month later, Muqrin was sent to Damascus to personally deliver overtures to the Assad regime as part of the larger Arab campaign to reengage Syria. Involvement in critical Saudi foreign-policy efforts and his relative youth have positioned Muqrin well for greater responsibilities in the near future.
Saudi General Intelligence Presidency
The Ri'āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-'Āmah (Arabic: رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة), or the General Intelligence Presidency (Arabic: رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة) (GIP), is the primary intelligence agency of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The role of intelligence was recognized by King Abdulaziz Al-Saud who had used it in his unification of Saudi Arabia. His interest in modern communication increasingly grew when he set up the first radio communications system in Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom started the intelligence service in 1955 under the name of Al-Mabahith Al-Aammah.
Source-Wikipedia
History
During the reign of King Saud bin Abdulaziz, the General Intelligence was separated from the Mabahith (General Investigation Directorate). Intelligence was established as an independent security service with the issuing of the Royal Decree 11 in 1957 that ordered the setting up of a special department under the title of Maslahat Al-Istikhbarat Al-Aammah or (General Intelligence Department). During this period two branches of the Presidency were set up locally, the western branch in Jeddah, and eastern one in Dhahran.
The GIP expanded under King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, with the opening of offices abroad. The agency expanded its monitoring of internal threats after the 1979 capture of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.[1]
The GIP's charter was changed by King Khaled bin Abdulaziz in 1982, by Royal Decree M-5, dated 19 December 1982, which set out its responsibilities, duties, and the limits of its activities. This established the internal organization of the agency with a General Department for Operations, the General Department for Administration and Finance, the General Department for Training and Planning, and the General Department for Technical Affairs. Along with the National Research Center, and the Center for Media and International Communications (previously Center for Translation and Media).
In 1997, the Office for External Communications was transferred to the Presidency from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Its name was also changed to the General Department for External Communications, and it was strengthened with the addition of high-tech equipment and specialists in radio surveillance. This period saw the expansion of the activities of the agency abroad with the establishment and development of more offices in other countries, and through more effort to organize its work.
During the reign of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz the Higher Committee for Development was set up and was chaired by the President of the General Intelligence Presidency; its membership consisted of the heads of the various departments of the GIP. Also during the tenure of King Fahd, the administrative structuring of the Information Center was approved.
Muqran bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud was appointed as president of the General Intelligence Presidency by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz in October 2005[2].
The mission of the Presidency is “provide strategic intelligence, contribute to achieve national security, and provide timely information to the authorities, so that they can take rapid and appropriate actions.”
GIP MISSION
The GIP does this through:
1. Early collection of information about countries of interest.
2. Planning and executing intelligence operations in these countries.
3. Countering espionage, intellectual and material destruction and uncovering hostile individuals.
4. Coordinating specialized studies and strategic research by the intelligence staff and in cooperation with universities, research centers, security bodies and other intelligence services.
5. Monitoring the changing domestic and international situation.
Former Saudi Intelligence Chief worries about Iran
Source-France24.com
U.S. Military Build-Up on Islands of Socatra, Yemen and Masirah, Oman
While quietly casting lines to draw Tehran into talks on their nuclear dispute, PresidentBarack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands – Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Socotra is situated 80 kilometers east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers southeast of the Yemeni coastline. It lies athwart the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A military base there is in a position to oversee the shipping moving in and out of those strategic naval waterways.
Lushly verdant, Socotra is approximately 120 kilometers long by 40 kilometers wide. Its population of 55,000 has its own distinct language and culture. Since 2010, the US has been quietly building giant air force and naval bases on Socotra with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for flying stealth drones, as part of a linked chain of strategic US military facilities in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
The Socotra facilities are so secret that they are never mentioned in any catalogue listing US military facilities in this part of the world, which include Jebel Ali and Al Dahfra in the United Arab Emirates; Arifjan in Kuwait; and Al Udeid in Qatar – all within short flying distances from Iran.
Additional US forces are also being poured into Camp Justice on the barren, 70-kilometer long Omani island of Masirah, just south of the Hormuz entry point to the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea.
US military facilities were established there after the signing of an access agreement with Oman in 1980.
Up to 100,000 troops by March
Up to 100,000 US troops present by early March
For the new buildup on Socotra, Washington had to negotiate a new deal with Yemen's ousted ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Injured in an assassination attempt last year, Saleh demanded permission to travel to the United States for medical treatment. The Obama administration first refused, then relented when Saleh made it his condition for consenting to additional troops landing on the island.
Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands tellDEBKA-Net-Weekly that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
Then, 100,000 American troops were massed in Kuwait ahead of the invasion. Today, those sources estimate from the current pace of arrivals on the two island bases, that 50,000 US troops will have accumulated on Socotra and Masirah by mid-February. They will top up the 50,000 military already present in the Persian Gulf region, so that in less than a month, Washington will have some 100,000 military personnel on the spot and available for any contingency.
US air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra and Masirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America's biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away. The US military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are theUSS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
A fourth US carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days' sailing time from the water off Iran's coast.
By early March, therefore, America will have piled up enough military strength within reach of Iran to exercise its consistently avowed military option.
Tuesday, Jan. 24, in his State of the Union address, the president said: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”
Our military sources have also picked up reports of British and French air, naval and special forces landings this month in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
All these military concentrations and Obama's latest word on the Iranian nuclear issue tend to confirm that nothing has changed since DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources in Washington first reported in November 2011 on the US president's resolve to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in the course of 2012.
(See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 515 of Nov. 4: Targeting Tehran: Obama Set to Attack Iran’s Nuclear Sites by the fall of 2012),
The only difference may be the possibility of the date moving up from fall to spring, depending on three developments:
1. The outcome of the secret exchanges taking place between Washington and Tehran on which we have reported exclusively;
2. An Israeli decision to go ahead with a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Obama has not been able to convince Israel to drop this option and leave military action entirely to the United States.
3. The US presidential election campaign: Obama may decide to go for an attack to cripple Iran's nuclear program and preempt its production of a bomb to gain a winning hand for trumping his Republican rivals' accusation that he is weak on Iran.
Saudi Arabia vs. Iran
Saudis deploying thousands of troops on eastern oil fields
Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told Al-Arabiya television last week that the Saudi government takes Iran's threats seriously. He pointed in particular to the words of Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who warned that Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi's promise to boost oil production by 2.7 million barrels a day (bpd) to make up for any shortfall caused by sanctions on Iran, would "create all possible problems later."
Prince Turki said he personally did not believe the oil kingdom would engage in military action but added:
"It's a direct threat to our national interests and a direct threat to our industrial installations on the coast."
Other Saudi officials in Riyadh were less diplomatic: "Iran's threats could be interpreted by Saudi Arabia as an act of war," said a senior Saudi defense official bluntly.
This week, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report, Saudi Arabia began deploying its military in the kingdom's oil regions in the east opposite the Persian Gulf.
Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 intercept missile batteries were installed around the oil fields and oil terminals; Saudi special forces stationed around the kingdom's main export terminal at Ras Tanura; and special marine and naval forces trained to defend the installations began conducting sea patrols off shore.
Saudi armored forces were furthermore stationed at the main junctions of the pipelines and pumping stations and its air force and navy put on a state of alert.
While the whole world talked about Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to an embargo on its oil exports, the Saudis were far more concerned with the reality of the second half of that threat: They are certain that the menace of an Iranian strike at Saudi oil targets will loom ever larger as US-European sanctions bite deeper into Iran's oil sales and Riyadh steps up its oil production to make up for the Iranian shortfall.
Tehran resorts to smuggling after its oil sales shrink
The Saudis envision a panoply of aggressive Iranian operations: Missiles striking their oil fields and export terminals - aimed from speedboats zooming up close to target and launched from small unpopulated Persian Gulf islands occupied for the purpose by especially trained Iranian units.
Iranian frogmen may come ashore to sabotage oil installations and pipelines; kamikaze pilots crash their planes into the oil tankers; and booby-trapped speedboats piloted by suicide attackers try to ram oil installations or tankers.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Gulf sources report that Riyadh challenges assessments in the West and Israel that the oil embargo has not yet touched Iran. According to Saudi figures, Tehran is already losing buyers and its regular export volume of around 2.5 million barrels a day has dropped by 15-20 percent.
To make up the difference, says Riyadh, the Iranians have in recent weeks set in motion a major enterprise for smuggling their oil out to market through certain Persian Gulf countries.
They are using large and medium sized oil tankers without flags or identifying markings to drop anchor in Gulf ports, most frequently in Abu Dhabi and Oman. Shrewd traders specializing in the sale of smuggled oil then purchase quantities of crude with cash and transport it to various buyers who don't ask questions about its provenance.
This week, Saudi officials, accompanied by oil, security and intelligence experts, visited Abu Dhabi and Oman and asked the authorities there to put a stop to Iranian oil smuggling. But Riyadh understands that its effort to dry up the Iranian oil smuggling machine may bring Tehran still closer to a decision to go on the offensive against Saudi Arabia.
The Straight of Hormuz
The passage through the Strait of Hormuz by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three destroyers – one American, one British and one French, early Monday, Jan. 23 - surprised the world, but not apparently Tehran, which let the warships sail through without interference or incident.
Just two days earlier, Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) deputy commander Hossein Salamimade an uncharacteristically mild comment: “US warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” he said.
These events were the first outward sign of back-channel talks afoot between the emissaries of US PresidentBarack Obama and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Earlier that day, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, posing in the uniform of an aircraft carrier officer, stood in the vast hangar of the giant Enterprise Carrier Strike Group and informed the 1,700 crewmen and women assembled there that their ship would be dispatched to the Strait of Hormuz in March.
Panetta said: “… We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”
The Abraham Lincoln carrier tested Hormuz waters
The White House, which had fully approved Panetta's gesture, decided not to wait until March but to put Salami's words to the test forthwith by sending the Abraham Lincolnthrough the Strait of Hormuz that very night.
But first, President Obama put in urgent calls to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and to British Prime Minister David Cameron, and obtained their approval for British and French warships to enter the strategic strait in convoy with the Lincoln. As an extra precaution against trouble, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report that US Ambassador to Baghdad James Jeffrey contacted Hassan Danaifa, his Iranian opposite number in the Iraqi capital, and let him know that the US-led convoy would be crossing through the Strait of Hormuz shortly.
Ambassador Danaifar promised to pass the message to Tehran. When after a few hours, there was no answer from the Iranian government, Washington decided to take the silence as assent and ordered the Lincoln and escort to begin crossing through the Strait of Hormuz to the Persian Gulf.
The experiment paid off and Washington was encouraged to keep its secret exchanges with Tehran moving forward:
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that those exchanges are advancing on three tracks:
Channels through Baghdad, Ankara, Vienna
1. The Baghdad Track: Ambassadors Jeffrey and Danaifar have taken to meeting in the Green Zone of Baghdad every few days. Their conversations are exploratory, with each side demanding good faith gestures from the other to jump the dialogue forward.
Sources familiar with this track report that Ambassador Jeffrey holds up President Obama's message to Khamenei last month (through Turkish intermediaries, according to some sources; through Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, according to others, including Iranians), which the Iranian leader neglected to answer. The American diplomat insists on the Iranian leader replying to the US president's missive and relating to his proposals before confidence-building gestures are discussed.
Iranian lawmaker Hussein Naqavai claimed this week, “Obama proposed a red telephone between Tehran and Washington. This is an admission that Iran should be consulted on major international issues."
But this is precisely what Washington wishes to avoid: Reciprocal confidence-building gestures are not intended to convey United States recognition of Iran's pretensions as a regional superpower.
And, according to a Western source in the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration is also refusing to succumb to Iran's bagaining tactics for selling Persian carpets, i.e. the more a buyer simplifies the transaction to lower the price, the higher the Iranians climb.
2. The Turkish track: Tehran is not happy with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu acting as brokers, in view of their animosity towards Syria's Bashar Assad. However, they are keeping the Turkish track open in consideration of Erdogan's close ties with Obama, while at the same time stirring up trouble between him and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Tehran hopes that the dispute over the latter's persecution of Iraq's Sunni community will raise tensions enough to eventually undermine the Turkish track.
Back channels are not yet generating results
In the latest round of acrimony, Al Maliki accused Ankara of meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs, to which Erdogan retorted Tuesday, Jan. 24: “The idea that Turkey is interfering in your domestic affairs is a very ugly and unfortunate one. Mr. Maliki must know very well that if you initiate a period of clashes in Iraq based on sectarian strife, it is impossible for us to remain silent.”
3. The Viennese track: The miles of corridors at International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in the Austrian capital, are an ideal venue for backdoor, off-the-record encounters between American and Iranian diplomats. There, ideas can be freely proposed and unofficial papers traded concerning Iran's disputed nuclear program.
The three tracks have yet to produce results, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington and Iranian sources report.
Just as President Obama was pushing tough sanctions hard, managing this week to get the European Union to approve an oil embargo on Iran and a freeze on its central bank's assets, Washington and Tehran came to a quiet understanding: The new US and EU sanctions would only start taking effect on July 1, leaving six months for negotiations to get underway.
But there is still a way to go before this happens.
And both Washington and Tehran are already girding up for the dialogue to break down even after it starts, according to sources familiar with the calculations on both sides. At that point, the military option will resurface at full blast.
US preparations for a military flare-up are covered in the first article
Source-PacificRim International.com
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