Tag: saudi arabia

US approves potential military sale worth almost $2.8bn to Saudi Arabia

The United States has approved a potential major sale of $2.8 billion worth of military equipment to Saudi Arabia, as Washington continues to serve as one of the key arms suppliers to the kingdom.

In a statement, the US State Department’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency announced yesterday the major potential sale that “will improve the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s capability to deter current and future threats by providing sustainment and training support of the Royal Saudi Air Force’s existing platforms and aircraft fleets.”

Stating that the sale would also support the US’s national security objectives and foreign policy goals in the region, the agency highlighted that the military equipment in question covers system logistics and sustainment support. It added that it has already delivered the required certification notifying US Congress of the potential sale, worth $2.8 billion.

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Saudi Arabia threatened to sell European debts if G7 confiscates Russian assets

Saudi Arabia threatened to sell off some of its European debt holdings earlier this year if the G7 went forward with rumored plans to seize nearly $300 billion in Russian assets it had frozen.

One source who was aware of the discussions described it to Bloomberg as a “veiled threat,” while two sources said that the Saudis explicitly mentioned debt issued by the French treasury.

These threats came at a time when the G7 was said to be considering a number of options when it comes to handling the funds it seized belonging to the Russian central bank. While the U.S. and U.K. pushed for aggressive options such as a direct seizure, some of the European nations in the G7 opposed it on the grounds that it could undermine their currency. They ultimately all agreed to use the profits generated by the assets while leaving the assets themselves untouched.

The sources said they think the Saudis’ threat played a role in the European nations’ unwillingness to seize all of the funds.

It is believed that Saudi Arabia’s holdings of Euro and French bonds totals tens of billions of euros, and while this may not have been enough to cause significant concern, there were worries that other countries could have followed suit and sold off their own debt holdings in protest of a G7 seizure.

Although a Saudi official insisted that the government does not normally issue this type of threat, they conceded that they may have informed G7 nations of the consequences that any seizures could bring. The Kingdom changed its position on the matter after the G7 countries eventually opted for a proposal that did not involve keeping the assets.

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New Video Shows Saudi Official Plotting 9-11 Attacks in Washington DC Prior to the Massacre of 3,000 Americans – FBI Has Been Holding the Video for Over 20 Years

Chris Cuomo played video on Friday night that shows a Saudi official plotting the 9-11 attacks that killed 3,000 Americans.

The video aired on News Nation and shows a Saudi official plotting the attack in Washington DC.

This is the first time The Gateway Pundit has seen this video.

Chris Cuomo: There’s a story that’s out right now that you have not been smothered with today. The more I think about it, it has been eating at me all day about how blanked up this is. We all remember 9/11. I guess we remember. Maybe we don’t? Maybe we don’t. Maybe time does heal all wounds unless you were directly affected, like the families who are forever scarred and the families of the first responders, etc.

But this CBS video, well, it’s CBS just got a video that supports an allegation that was made in a lawsuit by the 9/11 families that it wasn’t just about Osama bin Laden, not just Al Qaeda. This guy is a Saudi official, and that the Saudi government was involved.

Now, is this the first time we’ve ever heard this? No, but we’ve never given a damn. That’s the part that just finally slapped me today as someone who supposedly cares about what happened that day because I lost so many people I knew and we would never forget, and all these things.

In the CBS video, Omar al-Bayoui, whom the FBI says was a Saudi operative. In the video al-Bayoui is seen casing the US Capitol in Washington DC, the likely target of the Flight 93 operation that was thwarted that day by American passengers and heroes.

The video was found by British police during a raid on Bayoumi’s UK apartment days after the 9-11 attacks.

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mRNA COVID jabs caused one in four Saudis to suffer heart issues, “bombshell” study finds

New research out of Saudi Arabia has found that a shocking 27.11 percent of, or a little more than one in four, people who got “vaccinated” for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) suffered heart-related complications within a month to more than a year after injection.

Microbiologist and immunologist Muazzam M. Sheriff and colleagues at Ibn Sina National College for Medical Studies and King Faisal General Hospital noted that more than a quarter of COVID jab recipients suffered some kind of cardiac complication after getting the mRNA variety of shot, made by either Pfizer and BioNTech or Moderna.

Nearly 15 percent of mRNA jab recipients reported experiencing heart-related symptoms within one month of injection, while others reported heart problems upwards of a year or more after doing the deed.

TrialSite News is calling Sheriff’s study a “bombshell,” with founder Daniel O’Connor telling The Defender that “the rate of hospitalized cases was certainly notable, especially given the existing cardiac myocarditis and pericarditis signal associated with the vaccines.”

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Sullivan to meet MBS to push Saudi side of Israel mega-deal

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Thursday about a potential mega-deal that would include Saudi normalization with Israel.

Why it matters: With the war in Gaza ongoing and the U.S. presidential election just seven months away, White House officials admit there’s a slim chance they can pull off the historic peace agreement. Sullivan’s trip shows President Biden is still determined to pursue it.

Behind the scenes: The White House continues to work toward a draft U.S.-Saudi defense treaty and understandings related to U.S. support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program, according to four U.S. and Israeli officials.

  • U.S. officials hope to reach a bilateral agreement with the Saudis and then possibly present it to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose side of the deal would include committing to a path toward a two-state solution.
  • Netanyahu would then face a choice: If he agrees, he could broke a historic peace deal with Saudi Arabia. If he says no, he could be exposed as a rejectionist and lose whatever U.S. support he still has left.
  • The White House declined to comment. The Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

What they’re saying: “There has been lot of progress in the talks between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia about their draft defense treaty. They want to have their side of the deal ready and then put it on our table and say, ‘Take it or leave it,” a senior Israeli official told Axios.

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Unveiling the Departure of Saudi Nationals Post 9/11: A Puzzling Chapter

In the aftermath of the devastating terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, a perplexing episode unfolded as numerous Saudi Arabian nationals, including members of the elite, were allowed to leave the United States on flights despite a nationwide grounding of air traffic. This enigmatic episode has sparked curiosity and debate over the years.

According to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), several flights chartered by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., facilitated the expedited departure of various Saudi students and elites from the U.S. The most notable among these was Ryan International Airlines flight 441, which made multiple stops across the country to pick up passengers before leaving for Geneva, Switzerland, on September 20, 2001.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted extensive investigations, including interviews and security checks, to ensure that none of the passengers aboard these flights posed a threat to national security. Records indicate that the passengers included members of the Saudi royal family and individuals affiliated with prominent Saudi families. Despite the thorough scrutiny, none of the passengers were found to have connections to the 9/11 hijackers or to be of investigative interest in relation to the attacks.

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Beheadings, crucifixions and heads on spikes: Inside Saudi Arabia’s ‘relentless killing spree’ of medieval-style executions – including 81 in one day – that has seen record numbers put to death under Crown Prince MBS

Brutal executions are on the rise in Saudi Arabia under the reign of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with human rights activists calling the score of beheadings and crucifixions a ‘relentless killing spree’.

The Saudi authorities have killed hundreds in capital punishments since the Crown Prince’s tenure started in 2015, hitting a new milestone that Amnesty International said reveals the kingdom’s ‘chilling disregard for the right to life’. 

Despite bin Salman promising he would limit the use of capital punishments, the number nearly doubled since he took the throne, according to NGO Reprieve. From 2010 to 2014 there was an average of 70.8 executions per year but from 2015 to 2022 there was an average of 129.5 executions per year – a rise of 82 per cent. 

Last year, the kingdom carried out at least 172 executions, despite renewed promises from bin Salman to limit the scope of capital punishment. 

Saudi Arabia even beheaded 81 people in a single day in March 2022 as part of the 193 executions Amnesty International said were carried out in the country – despite authorities saying it had been just 147.

The majority of state executions in Saudi Arabia are still carried out by sword decapitation – sometimes followed by the crucifixion of the body as the heads are displayed on a stick – but there have also been reports of prisoners sentenced to death by stoning.

Beheadings are only carried out by Saudi Arabia and the Taliban and can be used for a variety of crimes including murder, apostasy (abandoning Islam), homosexuality, witchcraft or sorcery, and ‘waging war on God’.

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Israel war: Leaders of Iran and Saudi Arabia hold first-ever phone call, pledging united support for Palestinians

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi talked on the phone for the first time ever, pledging united support for the Palestinian cause.

The conversation lasted for roughly 45 minutes, according to SAMAA, and it focused on the war in Gaza. Iranian state media reported that the two affirmed the “need to end war crimes against Palestine,” according to Reuters. The Saudi Press Agency reported that Salman affirmed his support for the Palestinian cause and urged against the targeting of civilians.

“He also stressed – may God protect him – the Kingdom’s firm position towards supporting the Palestinian cause and supporting efforts aimed at achieving a comprehensive and just peace that guarantees the Palestinian people’s access to their legitimate rights,” the Saudi Press Agency said in a statement.

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NYT op-ed page obscures author’s Saudi funding

The New York Times picked September 11th as an opportune day to publish an essay praising “President Joe Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia exchang[ing] a warm handshake” at last week’s G20 summit, and celebrating the possibility of the U.S. giving formal security guarantees to Riyadh in exchange for Saudi Arabia establishing diplomatic ties with Israel.

Plenty is missing from the essay, including any discussion of how a security commitment might compel U.S. soldiers to fight on behalf of Saudi Arabia, a country whose de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, was responsible for ordering the operation that killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khahoshoggi and has overseen a brutal war in Yemen. The U.S. government also continues to withhold an unredacted memo detailing ties between 9/11 hijackers and Saudi Arabia.

But perhaps even more noticeably, the Times failed to acknowledge the potential financial conflicts of interest between the essay writer’s employer and the essay’s arguments for security guarantees that would be highly beneficial to Saudi Arabia.

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Saudi Arabia: Man Sentenced to Death for Tweets

A Saudi court has sentenced a man to death based solely on his Twitter, and YouTube activity, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities should quash the verdict, which is an escalation of the Saudi government’s crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful political dissent in the country.

On July 10, 2023, the Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism tribunal, convicted Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, a retired Saudi teacher, of several criminal offenses related solely to his peaceful expression online. The court sentenced him to death, using his tweets, retweets, and YouTube activity as the evidence against him.

“Repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi authorities have escalated their campaign against all dissent to mind-boggling levels and should reject this travesty of justice.”

Saudi security forces arrested al-Ghamdi in front of his wife and children on June 11, 2022, outside his home in the al-Nawwariyyah neighborhood of Mecca, people with knowledge of the case told Human Rights Watch. They took him to al-Dhahban Prison, north of Jeddah, where he was held in solitary confinement for four months. His family was unable to contact him during this period and he did not have access to a lawyer. The authorities later transferred al-Ghamdi to the al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh.

Saudi interrogators questioned him about tweets and political opinions and asked his opinions about individuals imprisoned for exercising their right to free expression. Al-Ghamdi did not have a lawyer for nearly a year and once he finally did obtain legal representation, he was only able to speak with the lawyer immediately in advance of court sessions.

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