Tag: Saudi Arabia

ISIS and jihadists aren't the only ones who use beheadings as a means of execution. Yesterday, Saudi Arabia beheaded four drug traffickers.

Four drug traffickers from Syria and Iran were decapitated by sword in northern and eastern Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the government said, disregarding concerns raised by human rights organizations and raising the number of people executed over the last month to 30.

The King of Saudi Arabia has been harshly critical of ISIS, launching a crackdown on the "deviants." So have Saudi religious leaders. The King specifically criticized ISIS beheadings last week.

Abdullah denounced ISIS’s savage beheadings and mass killings. He said ISIS jihadists “do not know humanity,” according to a Saudi Press Agency report.

...Abdullah condemned the “cruelty” of the beheadings and children’s involvement in them, saying they are “against the teachings of Allah almighty.”

First, what a hypocrite. [More...]

The penalty for drug trafficking in Saudi Arabia is death, which it carries out regularly through public beheadings. Either the death penalty is not much of a deterrent, or some people are pretty confident they won't get caught.

The Saudi Government announced today it seized 1/2 ton of cocaine (526 kilograms)at the port of Jeddah on June 7. The drugs were in a shipment of refills of photocopy paper that came from an unspecified country in South America.

Where did the drugs ship from? Ecuador is a possibility. Last week, the foreign minister of Ecuador announced on Twitter that 4 tons of drugs had been seized at the port of Guayaquil, bound for Saudi Arabia. (The police later corrected him and said it was 400 kilos.) In January, 227 kilos were seized en route to Saudi Arabia from Ecuador hidden in pineapples. In April, 600 kilograms were seized en route from Ecuador to Saudi Arabia. hidden in bananas.[More...]

It's not easy learning about events that have been going on for some time in another country. Here is a chronological account of al Qaida Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other terror-related events in Yemen and Saudi Arabia I've compiled from the update section of the last ten issues of The Sentinel published this year. The Sentinel is the publication of The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. I'm mostly posting it as a reference point since I've been trying to get up to speed and want the information in one place, and the easiest way to do that is to post it.

The list includes events from from December, 2008 through November, 2009. [More...]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today announced a global summit on aid to Yemen to assist the country in eliminating the increasing number of radical extremists and al Qaida members who have moved there, in hopes of making it their next safe haven.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend.

Mr Brown will spend the next few days attempting to persuade Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, and other Gulf states to join forces with Britain and the US.

Brussels has expressed strong support for the initiative. The Prime Minister hopes that, between them, they can provide enough aid to offer Yemenis an alternative to radical Islam ....Mr Brown said yesterday: “The international community must not deny Yemen the support it needs to tackle extremism.”

This is welcome news. [More...]

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has intervened and canceled the 60 lashes for female journalist Rozanna al-Yami.

She had worked for a network that produced a show called "Red Lines, examining taboos in the Arab world, including extra-marital sex in Saudi Arabia." She wasn't directly involved with the show itself.

The Saudi man who was on the show discussing his adventures was sentenced to 5 years and 1,000 lashes. Three of his friends who appeared with him on the show got two year sentences, and lashes. The cameraman was jailed for two months, but no lashes. LBC, the Lebanon-based Arabic channel which broadcast the show has been shut down.