http://www.infowars.com/libyan-terrorists-are-invading-syria/
Libyan Terrorists Are Invading Syria
Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
August 15, 2012
Infowars.com
August 15, 2012
Reuters today provides us with a spectacularly contradictory headline in their report, “Libyan fighters join Syrian revolt.” Obviously foreign fighters from Libya, raiding cities, attacking government and civilian targets, and attempting to subvert and overthrow the sovereign government of Syria is not a “revolt.” It is an invasion.
Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as “foreign invasion.”
Reuters reported, that Mahdi al-Harati, “a powerful militia chief from Libya’s western mountains,” who is actually a militant of the US, British, and UN listed terrorist organizationLibyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), “now leads a unit in Syria, made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit.” Reuters would go on to explain, “the Libyans aiding the Syrian rebels include specialists in communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons,” and that they “operate training bases, teaching fitness and battlefield tactics.”
Reuters concedes that the ongoing battle has nothing to do with democracy, but instead is purely a sectarian campaign aimed at “pushing out” Syria’s minorities, perceived to be “oppressing” “Sunni Muslims.”
Reuters’ propaganda piece is rounded off with a Libyan terrorist allegedly threatening that “the militancy would spread across the region as long as the West does not do more to hasten the downfall of Assad,” a talking point plucked straight from the halls of America’s corporate-financier funded think-tanks. In fact, just such a think-tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative, recently published astatement signed by Bush-era Neo-Conservatives stating:
“America’s national security interests are intertwined with the fate of the Syrian people and the wider region. Indeed, Syria’s escalating conflict now threatens to directly affect the country’s neighbors, including Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, and could provide an opening for terrorist groups like al Qaeda to exploit.”
Inspiring indeed that these two implacable enemies, Al Qaeda’s LIFG and America’s Neo-Con establishment, are now operating in such seamless harmony. It should be remembered that those who signed this statement, including Elliott Abrams, Max Boot, Ellen Bork, William Kristol, Paul Bremer, Paula Dobriansk, Douglas Feith, Robert Kagan, Clifford D. May, Stephen Rademaker, Michael Weiss, Radwan Ziadeh, were among the very engineers of the fraudulent “War on Terror.” Radwan Ziadeh, last on the list, is in fact a “Syrian National Council” member – one of several proxiesthe US State Department is hoping to slip into power in Syria.
Syria Is Suffering a Foreign Invasion, not a Revolution.
To reach Syria, Libyan fighters must cross the Mediterranean Sea and enter via Turkey, or cross Egypt, Israel, and enter via Jordan. The government of Syria has threatened Libya in no conceivable manner, making Libya’s campaign an intolerable act of military aggression. Worst of all, the NATO-installed government in Tripoli has officially approved of supporting military operations in distant Syria.
Image: Libya is separated by sea and several nations from Syria. For hundreds, possibly thousands of Libyan fighters to now be turning up in Syria indicates a military operation requiring multinational support, and more specifically, NATO-backing.
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In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit
Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and as recently as last month, CNN, whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:
Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.
A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.
On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.
CNN’s reports provide bookends to 2011′s admissions that large numbers of Libyan terroristsflush with NATO cash and weapons had headed to Syria, with notorious terrorist LIFG commandersmaking the arrangements.
In essence, Syria has been under invasion for nearly a year by Libyan terrorists – and as we will see, the Libyans are by no means an imperial force, but rather a terroristic foreign legion employed by far more nefarious players.
The West is Invading Syria by Proxy
NATO-member Turkey is directly complicit in facilitating Libya’s extraterritorial aggression by hosting Libyan fighters within its borders, while coordinating their funding, arming, and logistics as they cross the Turkish-Syrian border. Along Turkey’s borders also facilitating Libya’s invasion of Syria, is America’s CIA.
The New York Times admitted in June 2012 in their article, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” that “CIA officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey,” and directing weapons including, “automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons.” The NYT implicates Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar as the primary underwriters for the weapons while the CIA coordinates the logistics.
Image: The “Friends of Syria” represent many of the co-conspirators described in Seymour Hersh’s extensive 9 page report “The Redirection.” Syria’s violence is not the result of an indigenous uprising carrying “political aspirations,” but rather the conspiring and machinations of the global elite, who long-ago premeditated the destruction of Syria for their own, larger, overarching geopolitical agenda.
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To understand this particular arrangement, and why the US has forfeited the plausible deniability it seems it is so painstakingly trying to maintain, we must examine admissions by US policy makers stretching as far back as 2007 admitting that they planned to overthrow the government of Syria with foreign-sectarian extremists, using nations like Saudi Arabia to channel funds and weapons through, specifically to maintain the illusion that they were somehow not involved.
Seymour Hersh’s lengthy 9 page report, “The Redirection” published in the New Yorker in 2007 exposes US plans to use clandestine means to overthrow the government of Syria in a wider effort to undermine and destroy Iran. “A by-product of these activities,” writes Hersh, “has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
To say that Libya’s LIFG is “sympathetic to Al Qaeda” would, however, be misleading. It is Al Qaeda.
LIFG merged with the US-Saudi created terror organization in 2007, according to the US Army’s West Point Combating Terrorism Center report, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq:”
The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al‐Qa’ida, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al‐Qa’ida on November 3, 2007. (page 9, .pdf)
Hersh’s report would continue by stating, “the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria.” This included billions to pro-Saudi factions in Lebanon who were propping up militant groups linked to Al Qaeda. These militant groups are now crossing over the Lebanese-Syrian border to join their Libyan counterparts.
Clearly the conspiracy being pieced together and executed in 2007, described by Seymour Hersh citing a myriad of US, Saudi, and Lebanese sources, is unfolding before our eyes. It was a conspiracy hatched of mutual US-Israeli-Saudi interests, not based on humanitarian concerns or “democracy,” but rather on toppling sovereign nations seen as a threat to their collective extraterritorial influence throughout the region.
Selling A Terrorist Invasion
The US is executing a strategy where a series of specialized proxies are being used to carry out its geopolitical agenda across the Arab World. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are channeling funding and leading diplomatic efforts to ensure the West’s agenda is presented with an “Arab face,” while factions within nations like Lebanon, Turkey, and Libya handle varying degrees of logistical support and covert military intervention.
Syria is being invaded by proxy, by the US, NATO, Israel, and the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC). Of this there is no doubt. The corporate-financier interests driving this agenda have ensured a propaganda campaign will accompany this effort. This propaganda campaign is as ceaseless as it is shameless.
For example, in yet another CNN article covering Libyan fighters killing in Syria titled, “Libya rebels move onto Syrian battlefield,” we are told that NATO-armed terrorists “tasted the beauty of Jihad” in Libya - “beauty” Libya is now exporting to Syria.
Video: Wiped out. Tawarga, once home to 10,000 (this video claims up to 35,000) people, many part of Libya’s black community who had resided in the country for generations, had its inhabitants either exiled, imprisoned or exterminated. NATO-backed militants told the Telegraph in 2011, ” every single one of them has left, and we will never allow them to come back.” These sorts of atrocities are what the corporate-financier driven media sold in Libya, and what they are trying to sell again in Syria, ironically couched in “humanitarian concern.”
CNN’s “beauty” involved a conflict that saw NATO proxy forces empty out entire cities of black Libyans before systematically driving them beyond Libya’s borders either killing or imprisoning those who didn’t or couldn’t flee. This was after cities were blockaded by militants on the ground while NATO ceaselessly bombarded population centers from the air, with the specific goal of starving people into submission.
And for the families of the 3,000 Americans who died on September 11, 2001 who were told Al Qaeda was not just an enemy of America, but an enemy of mankind, or the tens of thousands in America’s Armed Forces who were killed, maimed, and otherwise affected by the decade of war that would follow in the so-called “War on Terror,” the “contradictory aspects” of America’s current foreign policy remain unexplained.
To the victims on both sides of a decade of global war, to see Al Qaeda’s terror campaigns, genocide, and other atrocities now underwritten by NATO and both spun and praised throughout the Western media must seem surreal. And such injustice, hypocrisy and misery will continue until we collectively find the resolve to identify, boycott, and entirely replace the corporate-financier interests driving this surreal paradigm.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/syrian-crisis-american-strategy-glides-forward-like-a-dream-machine/
SYRIAN CRISIS: American strategy glides forward like a dream machine.
As The Slog predicted recently, backing the Syrian rebels and cuddling up to Sunni radicals has left Iran isolated. Now we must all wonder whether Statesmanship can triumph over politics.
Hillary Clinton “accused” the Iranians last night of arming and training special militias to help relieve Bashar Assad’s beleaguered forces. I don’t doubt that it’s true, but then the Pentagon has also been actively backing the Syrian opposition forces…the majority of whom are Sunni Muslim Brotherhood members.
Right on cue, the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz had Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak ‘considering bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities before U.S. elections on Nov. 6′. This neatly gives the US permission to do that first, while reminding the Black Dude that Benjamin is not kidding about the timescale.
Nicely in tandem, the Sunni-dominated upcoming Islamic summit confirmed that it will expel Syria. And slotting neatly into its chosen role as victimised little guy, Tehran said that Syria “is part of a vital regional alliance that Iran will not allow to be broken”.
Six months ago, I doubted that the US would attempt anything quite as dumb as directly effecting ‘regime change’ in Iran. But now I’m reminded that the American governmental class remembers every insult, and learns no behavioural lessons as a result. Washington has never forgiven the Iranians for the 1970s hostage crisis, has taken consistent umbrage at Ahmadinnajhad’s deluded UN rants, and has always believed that the Iranians are building a bomb.
I’m sort of in the middle on this one. I think the Iranians would like to build a bomb and then vapourise Israel…but I don’t think they’re anywhere near achieving their objective. I can appreciate how threatened Tel Aviv feels – and how pissed off they are with Ahmadinnejhad arming those who lob missiles onto Israeli citizens. But I think Netanyahu is over-egging the pudding in order to get action now…rather than next year, when Obama is bound to be more domestically focused.
A bigger consideration than any of that, however, is this blase American idea of ‘regime change’ in Iran. You may change the regime in Tehran, but you won’t change the mindset: Mahmood Ahmadinnejhad is a symptom of a shared religious, anti-Semitic, anti-American fanaticism. Sure, there are those who oppose the President’s nasty habit of stuffing ballot boxes to his advantage, but they hate the heretics, the West, the Yanks and the Jews just as much.
Take a look at the size of Iran on a map. It is one big mother of a country. US dollar power is destroying the Iranian economy bit by bit. Diplomacy has already isolated the Tehran regime in the region. And Assad will go in the end, whether Iran intervenes or not. A statesman would, at this point, offer talks about Thorium reactors (or something) to the Iranians, while telling Prime Minister Netanyahu to calm down.
But the Israeli leader has rightly judged that Barack Obama is not a statesman: rather, he’s just another suit who thinks he’s a lot more clever than he really is – and mulling the idea of pulling an electoral rabbit out of the hat.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/08/20128154537913351.html
| Iran accused of setting up pro-Assad militias | |||||
US defence secretary says Iran's Revolutionary Guards giving pro-government fighters in Syria training and weapons.
Last Modified: 15 Aug 2012 07:36
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Panetta, left, says Iran's alleged intervention in Syria could aggravate the ongoing conflict [GALLO/GETTY]
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Iran has been accused by the US administration of setting up pro-government militias in Syria.
Leon Panetta, US defence secretary, said on Tuesday that Iran is giving the fighters training and weapons.
"It is obvious that Iran has been playing a larger role in Syria in many ways," he said at a joint press conference in Washington, DC with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey.
Panetta said Iran's growing presence could only aggravate the situation on the ground.
There is now evidence that Iran's Revolutionary Guards are "trying to develop, trying to train a militia within Syria to be able to fight on behalf of the regime", Panetta said.
"So we are seeing a growing presence by Iran and that is of deep concern to us. We do not think that Iran ought to play that role at this moment in time, that's dangerous ... it's adding to the killing that's going on in Syria."
Violence continued inside Syria on Wednesday, including a bomb explosion near the hotel used by the UN observer mission in central Damascus.
Alleged militia
Most of the members of the alleged militia are Shia, and some are Alawites like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Dempsey said, comparing the force to the Mahdi Army of the Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, an outspoken critic of the US invasion of his homeland.
"The Syrian army has been fighting now for about 18 months or so. And any army would be taxed with that kind of pace," Dempsey said, noting he expected that the Syrian military was experiencing resupply and morale problems.
Dempsey also said it appears that Syrian rebels are able to shoot down a Syrian warplane, but said he has seen no indication that they are armed with heavy weapons or surface-to-air missiles.
He says the MiG fighter could have been shot down with small-arms fire.
Syria has blamed the crash on a technical malfunction.
"The Syrian people ought to determine their future, not Iran," Panetta said.
Ghanbar Naderi, an Iranian journalist, told with Al Jazeera that this type of allegation from the US and its allies was not new.
"It's obvious that armed groups and gangs have been unable to topple Bashar al-Assad after more than a year, and now they are trying to find a scape goat in Iran again," he said in an interview from Tehran. "This is not just about Syria, this is about finding an excuse to attack Iran." The US has itself faced criticism of intervention from Iran, which has criticised Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of arming the opposition in Syria in collusion with the US and Israel. On August 4, Ahmad Vahidi, Iran's defence minister, said that "the region will face a major crisis if foreign forces, currently [covertly] present in Syria, enter the scene" and intervene militarily. "The losers of such a crisis will be the Westerners and pro-Zionist countries," he predicted in comments report on Iranian television. "It is ugly that countries ... have flooded Syria with arms, equipping terrorist groups. It will have very bad implications in the region." Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, has called the Syrian conflict a "proxy war, with regional and international players arming one side or the other". Valerie Amos, the United Nations humanitarian chief who is currently visiting Syria, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that "the responsibility [for the humanitarian suffering of so many civilians] rests with all of those involved with the fighting". Contentious talks Panetta's comments come as an emergency summit of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) got under way in the western Saudi city of Jeddah. The summit opened late on Tuesday with a proposal to suspend Syria, a move strongly opposed by Iran.
and.....
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH16Ak03.html
Saudis use summit to isolate Syria, Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi "To examine the situation in many countries of the Islamic world, intensify efforts to confront this situation, address the sources of discord and division therein, reunify the Islamic Ummah and promote Islamic solidarity." That is how Saudi Arabia's leaders initially justified their decision to hold a special meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation conference (OIC) in Mecca this week - their actions since suggest their real intention was to use the OIC as part of their crusade against an embattled Damascus and their 'cold war' with Tehran. On Monday, foreign ministers at the OIC decided by majority vote to recommended the suspension of Syria, which was expelled from the Arab League last November. The proposal is expected tobe implemented by the 57-member organization at a meeting on Wednesday. The decision was openly contested by Iran on the grounds that this would simply "erase the [Syrian] issue", to paraphrase Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who is accompanying President Mahmud Ahmadinejad at the conference. Ahmadinejad's expressions of hope for a "meeting of Islamic unity" at the summit in retrospect seem wishful thinking. Instead the meeting has produced a minor shock for Iranian diplomacy as the country gears up to host the summit of Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran at the end of August. However, Ahmadinejad's trip is still bound to generate some cracks in the robust edifice of Saudi-Iran hostility, which alone may be worth the trip - regardless of its side-effects - one of which has been Ahmadinejad's noticeable absence in areas affected by the recent earthquake. According to a Tehran University political science professor who spoke to the author on the condition of anonymity, the Iranian delegation to the OIC meeting "may feel cheated a little bit because [Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz] personally invited Ahmadinejad and assured Iran the goal was to promote Ummah unity, not to score foreign policy success against Iran and Syria." Indeed, it is doubtful that Iran would have participated at such a high level at the OIC summit if it had prior knowledge of the real intention - to prioritize the expulsion of Syria, Tehran had expected the OIC to initiate genuine conflict mediation efforts aimed at fostering a cease-fire and political dialogue between the warring parties. Itself home to a closed system of government that clamps down on internal dissent, Saudi Arabia has taken a bit of risk by spearheading Syria's expulsion. Critics may also point to how Riyadh sent troops to neighboring Bahrain to quell a mass revolt for democracy, and to the crucial military and financial support it has sent the Syrian opposition despite clauses in the OIC Charter that forbid intervention in the internal affairs of other Muslim states. |
The answer is simply conflict mediation. If the OIC wills it, there is a tremendous potential for the "pan-Islamic" organization to play a catalytic role in initiating much-needed political dialogue between the government and the opposition, as was called for by the UN's six-point plan that was pursued by the special representative, Kofi Annan, and can still be pursued by his replacement, Lakhdar Brahimi. It does not bode well for the OIC if Saudi Arabia's leading role in it is simply to completely ignore the UN peace plan and opt instead for a confrontational approach.
Iran is by no means alone in actively pushing for a mediated settlement of the Syrian crisis. Several other Muslim nations which participated in last week's Tehran meeting on Syria are also in favor of talks between the government and the opposition, which has shown signs of outrageous brutality recently though these aren't covered by Turkish or Saudi media.
There is chance these other nations, which include Pakistan and Iraq, could join hands with Iran on Wednesday to obstruct the vote on Syria's expulsion. Iran could also threaten to boycott future OIC meetings.
"Iran has been put in a difficult position by the Saudis and their GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] partners, who have presented President Ahmadinejad with a fait accompli on the issue of Syria's expulsion even before the summit of leaders got under way," says the Tehran professor cited above. Tehran will of course rebound from any "isolation effect" come the NAM summit, yet for the moment it would be difficult to hide bruised feelings over the "fast one" pulled by Riyadh and Ankara. A Saudi Arabia-Turkey duet on Syria has been in the making for quite sometime, which these countries likely now hoping that the diplomatic coup against Syria at the OIC summit will pave the way to a "no-fly zone" which aids the Syrian rebels and cripple the government's aerial offensive.
However, given Syria's strong air defenses and the unwillingness of major North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries to foot the bill for yet another gambit in the Middle East, this may still never happen.
but of course the rules applied to Syria don't apply to the Saudis....
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH16Ak01.html
Repression begets rebellion in Saudi Arabia
By Chris Zambelis
Against a backdrop of ongoing simmering dissent in the Arab world, growing unrest in Saudi Arabia, in contrast, has gone virtually unnoticed. In a climate of increasing political openness, popular Arab demands for the fall of longtime dictatorships have served as vehicles for airing deeply embedded resentments. In this context, narrow segments of Arab societies that have traditionally been subject to targeted discrimination, including ethnic and religious minorities, have become encouraged to articulate their grievances.
The mobilization of Saudi Arabia's Shi'a Muslim minority in the kingdom's Eastern Province (al-Mintaqah al-Sharqiyah) since 2011 and the resulting crackdown by Saudi security forces attests to the fact that the kingdom is not impervious to the kindof unrest being seen in fellow Arab countries.
By Chris Zambelis
Against a backdrop of ongoing simmering dissent in the Arab world, growing unrest in Saudi Arabia, in contrast, has gone virtually unnoticed. In a climate of increasing political openness, popular Arab demands for the fall of longtime dictatorships have served as vehicles for airing deeply embedded resentments. In this context, narrow segments of Arab societies that have traditionally been subject to targeted discrimination, including ethnic and religious minorities, have become encouraged to articulate their grievances.
The mobilization of Saudi Arabia's Shi'a Muslim minority in the kingdom's Eastern Province (al-Mintaqah al-Sharqiyah) since 2011 and the resulting crackdown by Saudi security forces attests to the fact that the kingdom is not impervious to the kindof unrest being seen in fellow Arab countries.
The fallout from the July 8 arrest of Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr on charges of sedition by Saudi security forces is demonstrative of the sectarian tensions percolating inside the reclusive Kingdom and the broader geopolitical currents driving Saudi behavior. Al-Nimr, a prominent Shi'a cleric and outspoken critic of the Saudi royal family and the regime's persecution of its Shi'a citizens, was reportedly shot in the leg during his arrest while driving near his home in the village of al-Awamiyah in Eastern Province.
Al-Nimr, who is regarded as the spiritual leader of Saudi Arabia's Shi'a community, remains in Saudi custody at a military hospital where, according to members of his family, he has endured torture. Al-Nimr has since gone on a hunger strike to protest his detention. The sheikh's arrest has sparked protests across Eastern Province, including in Qatif, al-Awamiyah, al-Hasa, and Safwa.
The protesters are demanding justice and equality, the release of all political prisoners, and the initiation of political reforms in the kingdom. Demonstrators have also called for the Saudi royal family to step down. Saudi security forces have used live fire and other repressive tactics to suppress the protests, killing and injuring a number of demonstrators in the process. Scores of protesters have also been detained throughout Eastern Province. The Saudi regime has blockaded major centers of dissent such as Qatif and other locations to collectively punish residents by inhibiting freedom of movement and economic activity .
Al-Nimr's latest arrest - the sheikh was arrested previously in 2004 and 2006 on similar charges - has emboldened Shi'a activists in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has scoffed at al-Nimr's scathing denunciations of the Saudi royal family and demands for greater rights for the Shi'a. For its part, the Saudi regime sees al-Nimr as a dangerous subversive and accuses him of calling for the secession of the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia also frequently labels al-Nimr as an instrument of an aggressive Iranian foreign policy that aims to undermine unity and stability in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia's reaction to dissent among its Shi'a population provides insight into the way it interprets its evolving geopolitical position in a rapidly changing Middle East. In a broad sense, the Saudi regime perceives the popular demands for freedom and democracy being voiced by Arabs as a serious threat to its long-term sustainability. Saudi Arabia also sees an Iranian hand behind Shi'a-led activism in the region. As evidenced by its decision to deploy security forces in neighboring Bahrain in March 2011 to crush an uprising led largely by a marginalized Shi'a majority that is agitating for greater freedoms under a Sunni-led, pro-Saudi monarchy, the kingdom worries that its own Shi'a community will rise up in turn.
Saudi Shi'a, many of whom maintain tribal and familial links with their Bahraini counterparts, organized protests in solidarity with Bahrainis while calling on Riyadh to remove its military from Bahrain. In this regard, Saudi Arabia views the organized and sustained political opposition among its Shi'a community in the context of its regional rivalry with Iran.
To further malign al-Nimr's reputation, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Ahmad bin Abdelaziz went so far as to question the cleric's mental health. In a report issued by the Saudi Press Agency, the prince declared that "Nimr is someone who stirs sedition ... The way he speaks reflects a mental deficiency and imbalance". Al-Nimr's supporters deny these accusations and accuse the Saudi royal family of seeking to avert attention from the most salient issues at hand, namely, the institutionalized marginalization of Shi'a in Saudi society and the persistence of authoritarianism in the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia is well known for its status as the world's top exporter of crude oil and its strategic alliance with the United States. It is also one of the world's most culturally and politically repressive countries. The rigid brand of ultraconservative Sunni Islam espoused by the kingdom treats Shi'a Muslims as apostates and differing schools of Islam as heretical. The Saudi clerical establishment regularly refers to Shi'a Muslims, for instance, with the pejorative label of rafidah (rejectionists). Estimated to represent approximately 10-15 % of Saudi Arabia's population of around 28 million, the Shi'a minority is concentrated in Eastern Province, a region where the majority of the kingdom's oil reserves are located. The Eastern Province has been fertile ground for organized opposition to the Saudi monarchy extending back decades. Despite the widely acknowledged social and economic problems endemic to Saudi society, the Kingdom continues to be seen as relatively immune to the political turbulence on display in other Arab countries. This assessment is derived from Saudi Arabia's strategic importance as an oil producer, which provides the kingdom with the ability to ward off internal rebellion by doling out social services and other benefits as well as its alliance with the United States. However, the recent events in Eastern Province indicate otherwise.
Riyadh has gone to great lengths to suppress the outflow of information from the Eastern Province. Activist groups in the region, such as the Eastern Province Revolution, however, continue to broadcast information from the scene on online social media outlets, including footage of public demonstrations, violent responses by Saudi security forces and evidence of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by the Saudi regime. The Eastern Province Revolution seeks to create "a consultative and electoral ruling system that represents the will of the people." The movement also aims to "end dictatorial rule through organizing revolutionary and legal activities and popular protests" in Saudi Arabia. [1]
Despite the Saudi regime's oppressive reaction to the displays of opposition, the demonstrations to date have remained largely peaceful. Reports that a Saudi security patrol in Qatif came under fire by protesters following a demonstration on August 3, however, indicates there is potential for an escalation in hostilities. At least one protester was reportedly killed in the ensuing clashes, while one Saudi soldier was killed and another wounded. In light of recent events, public demonstrations of dissent appear poised to persist in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.
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