Saudi citizens found guilty of engaging in homosexuality and feminism could see themselves lashed or imprisoned in the ultraconservative kingdom, lawyers suggested.

The punitive measures could range from fines, to public lashing or even imprisonment, lawyer Nawaf al-Nabati said, according to al-Watan.

The remarks came just hours after Saudi Arabia listed feminism and homosexuality as extremist elements, on Friday, despite the kingdom’s ongoing drive to reform and relax its ultraconservative laws.
Saudi Arabia’s counter-extremism department announced the move on Twitter, where it warned its citizens and nationals to remain cautious against such groups.

"Extremism in all its forms is a societal scourge. It is important to remain cautious,” the statement said, before warning against hardliners who break away from religion to affirm their views.

SOURCE: KRDO
The awkward camera angle is meant to hide the fact that the owner of the phone is filming, but there is no mistaking the outlines of the heavy cargo being deposited on the dock in the Yemeni port of Aden last week.

The distinctive shape of the US-made Oshkosh armored vehicle stands out in the early morning darkness, a piece of military hardware that is currently at the heart of a standoff between some American lawmakers and President Donald Trump’s administration.

Aden is controlled by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, whose main partners are continuing to ship American-made weapons into the country despite bipartisan outrage in Congress over the way the US is backing Riyadh in this bloody and bitter conflict.

Two Former Twitter Employees Charged With Spying For Saudi Arabia, May Be Involved In Khashoggi Murder
For all those still seeking details about Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it may be time to give Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey a call.

Two former Twitter employees were charged with spying for Saudi Arabia, the Justice Department unveiled on Wednesday in San Francisco, in a case which the WaPo said "raises concerns about the ability of Silicon Valley to protect the private information of dissidents and other users from repressive governments."

The complaint unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts. The accounts included those of a popular journalist with more than 1 million followers and other prominent government critics.

The country of Yemen, known in the medieval period as “Green Yemen,” is one of the most extensively terraced areas of the world. There, Yemeni farmers transformed rugged mountain slopes into terraces and built dams like the Great Marib, a structure whose history spans long enough that it was mentioned in the Quran. During the medieval period, Yemen had one of the widest ranges of agricultural crops in all of the Middle East.

SOURCE: MINT PRESS

HODEIDA, YEMEN — The country of Yemen, known in the medieval period as “Green Yemen,” is one of the most extensively terraced areas of the world. There, Yemeni farmers transformed rugged mountain slopes into terraces and built dams like the Great Marib, a structure whose history spans long enough that it was mentioned in the Quran. During the medieval period, Yemen had one of the widest ranges of agricultural crops in all of the Middle East.

More than 100,000 people have died as a result of the war in Yemen, according to an explosive new report by an American NGO.

Based on data collected from a variety of sources, including the United Nations, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED) said the death toll from the four-year-long war was considerably higher than most previous estimates.

Out of the over 100,000 people estimated to have been killed since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen's war in 2015 against the Houthi movement, at least 12,000 civilians were killed in direct attacks, the ACLED said.

Already, 2019 has so far been the second deadliest year of the conflict, with more than 20,000 deaths reported. By 2020, ACLED estimated that 102,000 will have been killed as a direct result of violence.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) called for the end of U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia while speaking at a 9/11 tribute museum in New York City on Tuesday.

“We should not be selling them our weapons. We should not be aiding or providing them with any kind of support so long as they continue with the kind of actions that I’ve just spoken about,” she said of Saudi Arabia.

The Democratic presidential candidate slammed Saudi Arabia for the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul last year as well as for its role in the conflict in Yemen.

She also called for the release of the results of an investigation into whether Saudi Arabia's government or people in its government had any involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

CROWN PRINCE OF SAUDI ARABIA MOHAMMAD BIN SALMAN (L) IS WELCOMED INDIAN PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI (R) WITH AN OFFICIAL WELCOMING CEREMONY AT PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN NEW DELHI, INDIA ON FEBRUARY 20, 2019 [INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY/HANDOUT/ANADOLU AGENCY]
Just one year after Saudi journalists Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder in his country’s Consulate in Istanbul, world leaders are flocking to Riyadh to attend a flagship investor meeting known as “Davos in the desert”.
Although there has been very little progress in bringing those responsible for the grisly murder to justice, the CIA and several other intelligence agencies believe that the killing was authorised by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom.

Five presidents and the heads of some of the world’s biggest banks and arms manufacturers are reported to be among those heading to Saudi Arabia for the potentially lucrative event.

SOURCE: AP
Dem. presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard was joined Tuesday by families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks to demand that federal authorities release the findings of their investigation into the Saudi government's role in the attacks.

Prince Turki criticized congressional representatives on Wednesday for the “horror” and “disdain” they express for Saudi Arabia, saying U.S. lawmakers are unable to perform their jobs to address “issues of racism and racial inequality” and to reform gun ownership laws. He also said that most U.S. media has a “consistently blinkered view” of Saudi Arabia, one that portrays negative events in the kingdom as “being the norm.”

The murder last year of Khashoggi, a U.S resident and Washington Post columnist, as well as the long-running war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the detention of Saudi female activists have all strained the kingdom’s relations with much of the Washington establishment outside the White House. Senior lawmakers in both parties remain unified on the issue of punishing the kingdom.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
When last year Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) hosted his second annual Future Investment Initiative, he was under international condemnation and scrutiny, and his invitation for major investment in modernizing the kingdom was immediately branded with pariah-status by global elites, given the event dubbed "Davos in the Desert" awkwardly came a mere three weeks after the Oct. 2, 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the consulate in Istanbul.

A year later we now know more about the Saudi state-sanctioned murder, with comprehensive investigative reports by the UN and CIA pointing the finger directly at MbS for ordering the grizzly hit and dismemberment, and though last year's "Davos in the Desert" was boycotted by a number of high profile companies and CEOs, this year's MbS-hosted investment forum in Riyadh appears business as usual once again, a mere one short year later.

US special envoy on Iran Brian Hook told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that the administration does not consider the withdrawal from Syria to in any way impact US hostility toward Iran.

Hook said the administration remains “very comfortable” with its Iran strategy, and that the “maximum pressure” campaign will continue. He added troops in northern Syria never had an Iran mission set.

Some Senators were eager to make Syria all about Iran, however, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) claiming Iran was “smiling from ear to ear as Turkey rushed into Syria.” Romney also claimed Turkey’s invasion made Assad stronger.

US officials have told Reuters that in response to the attacks on a pair of Saudi oil refineries in mid-September, the US carried out a cyber attack against Iran, damaging physical hardware in the process.

Such an attack has been alleged before, and these officials are only confirming on condition of anonymity, and even then are refusing to provide any details on what was actually attacked.

The Pentagon said they don’t discuss any of their cyber attacks, and so they are neither going to confirm or deny if they did it. Iran denied that they were attacked, suggesting the officials “must have dreamt it.”

Previously, a source in the Russian Defence Ministry expressed an opinion that American Patriot systems, which were protecting the oil refineries, failed to do their job due to their low efficiency against drone swarm attacks.

Former Director of the Israel Missile Defence Organisation Uzi Rubin has revealed in an interview with the Defence News media outlet that Saudi air defences, namely Patriot systems, failed to repel the combined drone and missile attack on the country’s oil facilities in September due to the aerial assailants flying below the horizon. According to him, the defences were not prepared to detect such targets.

"When it comes to missiles, missile defence sensors will aim above the horizon because the missile is above it and you don’t want clutter. So when it comes to guarding, the issue is things that can sneak in near the ground", he said.

In a step toward implementing a power-sharing deal meant to end fighting in South Yemen between government and separatist forces, Saudi Arabia has temporarily taken control of the port of Aden, the de facto capital of the south.

The deal intends for the Saudis to take the city just long enough to help establish a neutral force with militias from the various sides to police and defend the area. At that point, the Saudis are meant to withdraw, as have the UAE forces.

Under the deal, the UAE-backed separatists, the Southern Transitional Council, are intended to get some additional representation in the Saudi-backed government. Exact terms have yet to be announced.

The US is beefing up military might in the Middle East, saying it will send more troops, fighter jets and missile defense systems to Saudi Arabia amid escalating tensions with Iran.

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has authorized the deployment of two fighter squadrons, one Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW), two batteries of Patriot missile defense systems and one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Friday.

This is in addition to the 200 or so troops, Patriots and radar systems whose deployment was announced two weeks ago, and amounts to 3,000 troops “extended or authorized within the last month,” Hoffman clarified.

The United States has announced to deploy a large number of additional forces and equipment to Saudi Arabia, including air defenses and fighter aircraft, a move that officials say will help the kingdom protect itself against the kind of attacks that last month destroyed its oil facilities.

The U.S. will send fighter jets and additional air defenses to Saudi Arabia to defend the kingdom against Iran amid heightened tensions between the two Middle Eastern adversaries, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday.

Esper announced the deployment of several dozen fighter jets along with other aircraft and additional air defenses hours after Iran said two missiles struck one of its oil tankers traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, but it came after months of increased tensions between the two countries.

The deployment is also part of the response to the suspected Iranian missile and drone attack on Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14.

The recent attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and devastating retaliatory attacks by Yemeni forces exposed Saudi military vulnerabilities. Assaults should not come as a surprise, as it was just a matter of time, when, how and where the Houthis would strike. However, the results of these attacks are more than staggering, as they reveal the incompetence of Saudi military structures and the inability of the kingdom to protect its core infrastructure and defend its troops and territory.

So, why have Saudis experienced one humiliating defeat after another?

An anti-Iran alliance forged between the leaders of the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia is faltering as each have become overwhelmed by their own dilemmas, Israel's leading daily Haaretz reports.

“The three leaders who have led the anti-Iran line in recent years were each absorbed in his own domestic crisis this week,” Haaretz wrote on Thursday.

The Israeli paper pointed to the recently intensified impeachment inquiry surrounding US President Donald Trump and pre-indictment hearings threatening the tenure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the past week as signs that the two leaders were mired in crisis.

Following the brutal killing of Saudi dissident and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, one year ago, the Saudi government became something of a toxic commodity in American politics. Several high-profile lobbying and public relations firms dropped the Saudis as a client. Think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, severed ties with the Saudi government. Businesses pulled out of a major conference in Riyadh shortly after Khashoggi’s death.

Over the past two decades, Israel and Arab Gulf monarchies have forged a tacit partnership, increasingly aligning their interests and agendas, while hiding behind a public perception of being enemies.

Saudi-Israeli links are not new. They’ve made covert contacts through back-channels since Sheikh Kamal Adham’s time, when he ran the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate from 1965 to 1979. Though still having no official diplomatic relations, in recent years the Kingdom and Israel have put far less effort into concealing their unspoken strategic partnership.

President Trump’s protection of Saudi Arabia is at best a temporary shield. Veterans, peace and human rights groups, and other interest groups have been pushing Congress to block U.S. military support for the kingdom by invoking provisions of the War Powers Resolution and making amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. Human rights organizations also have pushed beneficiaries of Mohammed bin Salman’s private charity — among them the New York Public Library and the United Nations—to abandon their connection to the foundation, which the crown prince uses as a propaganda platform.

Yet, one year after Khashoggi’s killing, and 4 ½ years into the brutal Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, Congress and the president have yet to hold Saudi Arabia accountable. That cannot be allowed to stand. On the anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder, we owe it to him to stand up to the Saudi lobby and the president, and once and for all punish the Saudi government for what it has done.

Sources told Reuters that members within Saudi Arabia's ruling family and business elites are increasingly becoming frustrated with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) after the largest-ever attack on Saudi oil facilities on September 14, reported Reuters.

Distinguished members within the ruling Al Saud family have expressed deep concern about MbS' ability to defend and lead the world's largest oil exporter, according to a senior foreign diplomat and five sources with ties to the Al Saud family, all spoke on condition of anonymity to Reuters.

Some of the sources said the September 14 attacks fueled unwanted tensions in the Middle East, especially the threat of imminent war with Iran.

"There is a lot of resentment" about the crown prince's ability to lead, said one of the sources, a member of the Saudi elite with royal connections. "How were they not able to detect the attack?"

In late September, Yemen’s Houthis carried out a large-scale operation against Saudi-led forces on the border with the southern Saudi province of Narjan. According to a spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Houthi Government, the Houthis fully defeated at least 3 brigades of Saudi-backed forces. The Yemeni force killed 500 personnel, injured 2,000 others, destroyed 15 vehicles and seized a large number of weapons and military equipment.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari noted that the operation involved a coordinated effort of ground, missile, and air forces. They conducted at least 21 missile and drone strikes on positions of Saudi-led forces. As a result of the operation, the Houthis captured 350km2 from Saudi-led forces.

Brig. Gen. Sari said that aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition conducted at least 300 indiscriminate airstrikes in a desperate attempt to stop the Houthis’ advance. These strikes killed at least 200 coalition-backed personnel, according to the Houthis.

A new documentary has revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — also known as MbS — had promised US President Donald Trump to recognize Israel and normalize ties with the regime if the United States helped him “defeat Iran and take control of the Middle East.”

According to PBS documentary 'The Crown Prince,' which was broadcast on Saturday, the kingdom’s de facto ruler made the pledge in a meeting with President Trump during his visit to Riyadh in May 2017.

The Houthis started to spread material about the defeat of 3 Saudi brigades that were surrounded in Najran.

About 2000 prisoners (Saudis and mercenaries), a mountain of weapons and dozens of pieces of equipment were captured. In fact, 3 Saudi brigades ceased to exist as combat-ready units.

Something does not appear right in Saudi Arabia. Although the Wahhabi Kingdom has a technological, demographical and economical advantage over Yemen, it has completely failed to break the Yemeni resistance, headed by the Houthi-led Ansarullah Movement. The Ansarullah Movement has not just been on the defensive against Saudi Arabia’s advancements, but has also taken the fight directly to them despite the Kingdom controlling the seas and the high skies.

On September 14, the Yemeni Resistance attacked a Saudi Aramco oil facility, causing billions of dollars in damage that will take months to completely fix. However, it is the capture of thousands of Saudi soldiers, including high-ranking officers, and mercenaries that has consolidated the idea that Saudi Arabia is experiencing its own so-called “Vietnam War.”

Many may have hitherto been led to believe that the Houthis were a ragtag armed force lacking in sophistication. Many, seeing the drone and missile attacks on Saudi oil plants, may have declared it to be a false-flag attack carried out by Riyadh to boost Aramco’s market value; either that or it was an operation carried out by Iran or even Israel.

On Saturday September 28, the Houthis put paid to such speculation by confirming what many, like myself, have been writing for months; that is, that the asymmetrical tactics of the Houthis, combined with the conventional capabilities of the Yemeni army, are capable of bringing the Saudi kingdom of Mohammed Bin Salman to its knees.

The spokesman for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's administration has confirmed that Saudi leaders have been sending messages to Iran's president through a head of state, though refraining to give any details on the nature of those messages.

Ali Rabiei made the remarks during his weekly press briefing in Tehran on Monday, when he was asked about reports denoting that the Saudi leadership has been sending messages to Iran's chief executive.

“Yes, this is true that they have sent messages to Mr. Rouhani through a head of state,” Rabiei noted, adding, “We must see signs of it [Saudi’s goodwill] without any ambiguity, and the first sign of it is to stop the aggression against Yemen and put an end to the massacre of Yemenis.”

in his interview with 60 Minutes, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tried to do some damage control on the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, and the ongoing war in Yemen. The focus ultimately was brought back to the Saudis’ favorite topic, Iran.

A mystery surrounds the death of Saudi Arabia's King Salman's personal bodyguard amid rumours he was sacked just days earlier and may have had vital information about the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

General Abdelaziz al-Fagham died on Saturday evening in the Western city of Jeddah after a 'personal dispute' at the property.

King Salman's personal bodyguard was often seen at his side and had also accompanied him to a recent meeting with the Prime Minister of Iraq, Adil Abdul-Mahdi.

But his death has immediately led to speculation of palace politics, after claims he was recently dismissed, as reported by The Times.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said he takes full responsibility for the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but denies that he ordered the slaying.

The 34-year-old Crown Prince gave an interview to 60 Minutes on Sunday a year after Khashoggi, who had criticized him in columns for The Washington Post, was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

'This was a heinous crime,' he said. 'But I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government.'

Asked if he ordered the murder of Khashoggi, the Crown Prince replied: 'Absolutely not.'

The Crown Prince's interview came as it was revealed that Khashoggi's killers were heard laughing and discussing his murder just moments before it happened.

The killers of journalist Jamal Khashoggi were heard laughing moments before he entered the Saudi consulate and was murdered by a hit squad, it has been revealed.

The Washington Post columnist was executed in Istanbul after visiting his country's embassy to collect divorce papers.

In the days following his disappearance on October 2 last year, the Saudi and Turkish authorities issued contradictory statements about how he died and who was responsible.

But unbeknown to the Saudis, their consulate was bugged by Turkish intelligence, meaning that much of the planning and execution of his assassination was recorded.

The Houthis of Yemen claimed they completed a successful assault near the southern region of Najran, Saudi Arabia on Saturday. The Houthi’s military spokesman said “three enemy military brigades have fallen” and that they captured thousands of troops and hundreds of armored vehicles.

A massive column of black smoke has risen from a train station in Saudi Arabia’s city of Jeddah. The Haramain high-speed railway connects Islam’s holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and is crucial for facilitating annual pilgrimages.
There have been no reports of casualties as yet, and the possible cause of the blaze is also unknown. However, trains were diverted from the station and an evacuation was ordered.

Yemeni Army has released the footage of a large-scale military offensive carried out by Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees in Saudi Arabia’s southern border region of Najran, where three Saudi military brigades were completely destroyed and thousands of militiamen were taken into captivity.

This is the most significant of a string of cross-border raids carried out by the Houthis, although Saudi Arabia has yet to confirm the attack.

The Houthi’s Committee for Prisoners Affairs (NCPA) said: “We have presented to the United Nations a unilateral initiative to release 350 prisoners and detainees from the other party who were included in the Stockholm agreement statements,”

Abdul Qader Al-Murtada, head of the NCPA, explained that among the released prisoners are all the inmates who survived from the Saudi air strikes on Dhamar prison earlier this month, which killed over 100 non-combatants.

Details of al-Fagham’s killing remain sparse. Saudi officials began posting social-media messages of condolence about al-Fagham and his family late on Saturday evening. It wasn’t until late on Sunday evening that the kingdom’s official media began to publish official reports of al-Fagham’s demise. State-run Saudi television said that al-Fagham, whom it described as a “bodyguard of the custodian of the two holy mosques”, had been killed following a “dispute of a personal nature”. A subsequent television report stated that al-Fagham had died on Saturday evening at a house belonging to a close friend of his in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city, which is located on the shores of the Red Sea.

SOURCE: PEPE ESCOBAR VIA THE SAKER

“It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.”

The statement above was not written by Franz Kafka. In fact, it was written by a Kafka derivative: Brussels-based European bureaucracy. The Merkel-Macron-Johnson trio, representing Germany, France and the UK, seems to know what no “ongoing investigation” has unearthed: that Tehran was definitively responsible for the twin aerial strikes on Saudi oil installations.

“There is no other plausible explanation” translates as the occultation of Yemen. Yemen only features as the pounding ground of a vicious Saudi war, de facto supported by Washington and London and conducted with US and UK weapons, which has generated a horrendous humanitarian crisis.

So Iran is the culprit, no evidence provided, end of story, even if the “investigation continues.”

There are many unanswered questions, the most important of which is:

Why did Saudi Arabia’s advanced Patriot Air defense system fail to detect the drones and missiles?

While it’s seems axiomatic that most Americans suffer from historical amnesia, that’s not necessarily true for the U.S. military. And as America and Iran were sprinting towards a military confrontation last week, a recently retired senior U.S. military officer expounded on what he called “the bumbling, incompetent and feckless stupidity of it all.”

The target of the officer’s ire was not Donald Trump (whom he admires) or Mike Pompeo (who he doesn’t), but Saudi Arabia’s March 2015 decision to go to war against the Iranian-allied Houthi tribal movement in Yemen —“which is,” he argues, “how all of this nonsense got started in the first place.”

He explained: “We didn’t see the [Saudi] invasion [of Yemen] coming and we were shocked when it happened. But we were pretty blunt. We told them, ‘you can’t win and you’ll bankrupt your country. It’ll be a quagmire.’ And we were right.”

SOURCE: COMMON DREAMS
Warning: This story contains graphic images and video.

A Saudi Arabia-led coalition attack on Yemen Tuesday killed 16 people, including seven children, the latest massacre in the years long conflict.

"These children should not be victims of this conflict," Save the Children in Yemen country director Tamer Kirolos told Middle East Eye. "Yet, they have paid the highest price imaginable. We're calling for an independent investigation into the attack and for perpetrators to be held to account."

(@MohammedHojily) September 24, 2019

The attack was took place in Dhalea province, an area controlled by Houthi rebels, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Saudi-led war on Yemen—backed by the U.S. government—has raged for over four years.

According to Al Jazeera, the Houthis had hoped for a mutual drawdown in hostilities.

SOURCE: COMMON DREAMS
Warning: This story contains graphic images and video.

A Saudi Arabia-led coalition attack on Yemen Tuesday killed 16 people, including seven children, the latest massacre in the years long conflict.

"These children should not be victims of this conflict," Save the Children in Yemen country director Tamer Kirolos told Middle East Eye. "Yet, they have paid the highest price imaginable. We're calling for an independent investigation into the attack and for perpetrators to be held to account."

(@MohammedHojily) September 24, 2019

The attack was took place in Dhalea province, an area controlled by Houthi rebels, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Saudi-led war on Yemen—backed by the U.S. government—has raged for over four years.

According to Al Jazeera, the Houthis had hoped for a mutual drawdown in hostilities.

While President Trump has said that the US is not interested in a war with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, took to a UN meeting to suggest that US military options are still being considered.

While it seems a bit presumptive for the Saudi FM to decide to speak to US policy, his comments that US patience is “not inexhaustible” seems to be directed both at threatening Iran, and at trying to get the rest of the world on board with the conflict.

Al-Jubeir says that the UN report on the attack will be available soon, and that there is a whole list of options, including military options, still being considered, with him wanting to mobilize international support for what is to come.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is being paid to discuss Saudi’s alleged involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Prince Abdulrahman Bin Musa’id Bin Abdulaziz once again claimed yesterday.

Writing on Twitter, the prince said: “Nothing new, Erdogan continues his nonsense”, before republishing a claim he made in February: “In the last 10 days of every month, Erdogan speaks about Khashoggi’s issue, repeating the same old/new claims about Saudi Arabia. He knows this did not make sense in the past, but he may be do this at the time of the due payment!”

This came after Erdogan met with a group of Turks and Muslims on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly summit in New York yesterday. There Erdogan said he would continue to search for the facts about Khashoggi’s murder and the death of Egypt’s first freely elected civilian President Mohamed Morsi.

Published: September 24, 2019
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SOURCE: MINT PRESS
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are escalating to new heights, drawing the United States into a confrontation with the Islamic Republic after a sophisticated attack targeted Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facility — the largest oil processing facility in the world — knocking out half of the country’s oil capacity, or more than 5 million barrels a day, and leaving the oil fields in flames.

The attack was nothing the Kingdom had seen before or expected: According to U.S. and Saudi intel, 18 drones and seven cruise missiles were launched and went undetected by both American and Saudi radar systems. The weaponry even went unnoticed by the U.S. military base nearby, the Prince Sultan Airbase, which is guarded by an American Patriot missile defense system and over 500 U.S. military personnel.

The drone attacks on two major Saudi Aramco plants at Abqaiq and Khurais were carried out on September 14. As a result of significant damage done to the facilities, the production of about 5.7 million barrels of crude oil per day, or about half of Saudi Arabia’s total daily output, was temporarily suspended.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has announced that Riyadh is considering all options, including military, after the probe into the attacks on Aramco oil facilities is completed.

"We want to mobilise international support, and we want to look at all options - diplomatic options, economic options and military options - and then make the decision," he said, speaking in New York on Tuesday at a conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly

Saudi warplanes attacked a mosque in northern Yemen’s Amran Province early Monday, according to local media, killing at least five civilians. All the slain were members of the same family.

It’s not entirely clear why the mosque was attacked, though the Saudis have been bombing northern Yemen with increased frequency over the past several days, and most of the strikes don’t seem to be hitting anything military-related.

If anything, Friday’s proposal for a truce by Yemen’s Houthi movement seems to be driving the Saudis to carry out even more aggressive and frequent attacks, so as to remove any doubt that they are not on board with it.

And while the airstrikes in north Yemen are causing civilian casualties, the real problem is likely yet to come, as the Saudis have begun a new offensive against the port city of Hodeidah.

Rouhani’s Plan Offers US, Saudis Path Out of ‘Dead End’ Their Policies Created© REUTERS / Handout
OPINION
04:03 24.09.2019(updated 04:14 24.09.2019)Get short URL8121
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As Washington uses questionable evidence to call on other nations to condemn Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is expected to take a much different approach and use his time at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this week to propose a cooperative agreement to stabilize and secure the Persian Gulf region.

“I will also get the Iranian nation’s message across to the international community,” Rouhani said Monday after touching down in New York for the 74th UNGA. “The Iranian people are suffering from a cruel economic war. Iran is a nation of resistance and wants everyone to return to their commitments and laws.”

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n' Guns blog,

Now that I’ve had a week to process it, the attack on the Saudi Abqaiq oil processing facility was more than a brilliant operation, it was a trap.

And, unfortunately, President Trump just fell in it.

My initial reaction to this was that it could have easily been a false flag to gin up a war with Iran on the eve of Israeli elections. The initial spate of questions hadn’t been answered adequately.

As the week went along, however, it became clear that the responses from all concerned to this attack that the those that took responsibility for it, the Houthis in North Yemen backed by Iranian technology, were the ones that did it.

And it all comes down to the same thing, the Saudi Aramco IPO.

China, Russia and Iran are planning a joint naval drill in the Sea of Oman and northern Indian Ocean “soon”, a semi-official Iranian news outlet reported on Saturday, just days after the United States blamed Iran for a drone attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.

General Ghadir Nezami Pour, head of international affairs and defence diplomacy of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces, said the drill would take place in international waters, the Iran Press news agency reported.

“The exercises have different goals, including the exchange of tactical and military experiences, and sometimes they seek political goals which show a kind of convergence between participants,” he was quoted as saying.

“Officials at the level of defence minister, chief of staff of the armed forces and commanders of the armed forces will come to Iran in the near future and these actions reflect Iran’s active defence diplomacy,” he was quoted.