Terrorism in Saudi Arabia And Violence Against People Writing Paper I did write a paper already and the professor give me instructions to fix my work , ple

Terrorism in Saudi Arabia And Violence Against People Writing Paper I did write a paper already and the professor give me instructions to fix my work , please take like at the attached and make sure to fix it , take look at the xls . just so u know the topic is about (Terrorism in Saudi Arabia) , And I am with Saudi Arabia so don’t write something against it, also I will attached some resources I want you to use them in the paper. Legrenzi / Lawson: Saudi Arabia Calls Out Hezbollah
Saudi Arabia Calls Out Hezbollah:
Why Now?
Matteo Legrenzi and Fred H. Lawson
Dr. Legrenzi is an associate professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
and author of The GCC and the International Relations of the Gulf. Dr.
Lawson is a professor of government at Mills College and author of Global
Security Watch — Syria.
O
chase of arms and equipment for the Lebanese armed forces and security services.
An anonymous official in the Saudi foreign
ministry told reporters that the cancellation
was the direct consequence of “Lebanon’s
positions [on regional affairs], which are
not in harmony with the brotherly ties
linking [Lebanon and Saudi Arabia],” as
well as Hezbollah’s “political and media
campaigns” against the kingdom and the
party’s ongoing “terrorist acts” in neighboring countries.2 Riyadh’s abrupt turnaround caught the government of Prime
Minister Tammam Salam by surprise and
left pro-Saudi actors inside Lebanon uncertain what course of action to pursue next.3
Informed observers attributed Riyadh’s sudden burst of belligerence toward
Hezbollah to four primary causes: Beirut’s
unwillingness to join other Arab capitals
in blaming the Iranian authorities for a
January 2016 attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad, the
Saudi state’s sharp drop in income in the
wake of the collapse of global oil prices,
the Lebanese authorities’ refusal to release
a member of the Saudi ruling family taken
into custody at Beirut airport in October
n March 2, 2016, the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC)
posted on its official website a
scathing condemnation of the
Lebanese Islamist movement the Party of
God (Hezbollah), accusing it of carrying
out “hostile acts” in the six GCC memberstates and engaging in campaigns of “terror
and incitement” in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The pronouncement was attributed to GCC
Secretary General Abdullatif bin Rashid Al
Zayyani, but was widely acknowledged to
have been issued at the instigation of the
organization’s most influential member,
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Three days
earlier, the Saudi-owned MBC television
network in Lebanon broadcast a comedy
program that lampooned Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrullah, and depicted him as
nothing but a stooge of the Islamic Republic of Iran.1 Nasrullah replied on March 1
with a vituperative public riposte, in which
he charged that the Saudi government was
interferring in domestic politics all across
the Middle East, most notably in Lebanon.
Nasrullah’s accusation came in the
wake of Riyadh’s decision 10 days earlier
to cancel a $4 billion grant to fund the pur-
Middle East Policy © 2016, Middle East Policy Council
© 2016, The Authors
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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Summer 2016
ates (UAE), Bahrain and Qatar, launched
a major air and ground offensive in Yemen
in July 2015 that quickly won control of
central districts of the southern metropolis
of Aden. Fierce resistance from fighters
loyal to former President Ali Abdullah
Salih and the Saadah-based Supporters of
God (Ansar Allah, commonly called the
Huthis) prevented the expeditionary force
from pushing into the adjacent provinces
of Lahij, Dali and Abyan, however, and the
Saudi-led campaign soon bogged down.
The stalemate opened the door for radical
Islamists associated with the Islamic State
to enter the battle; some of them were
reported to have coordinated their operations with Saudi and UAE commanders
and others to have fought alongside Salih’s
allies.5 Tactical collaboration with Islamist
radicals enabled Saudi-allied forces to
capture large parts of Lahij and Abyan
provinces. But rivalry between newly
arrived militants and the local affiliate of
al-Qaeda, now known as the Supporters of
the Islamic Way of Life (Ansar al-Shariah),
precipitated sporadic attacks against Saudi
and UAE military personnel, as well as
against the Riyadh-backed administration
of President Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi.6
After gaining a foothold in the south,
fighters linked to the Islamic State became
active in Shabwah, al-Jawf, Marib and
Taizz provinces. Here they engaged in
direct combat with remnants of Yemen’s
regular armed forces, which had backed
Hadi and been expelled from Sanaa by
the Supporters of God in September 2014.
Troops loyal to the president managed to
fend off radical Islamists and Supporters of
God alike in the wastelands of Shabwah,
al-Jawf and Marib, but the Huthi-Salih
alliance repulsed repeated attempts by
Saudi-sponsored forces to extend their
control into the fertile highlands around
2015 with two tons of amphetamines in his
private aircraft, and Hezbollah’s growing
power in Lebanon’s domestic politics.4
These developments cast a pall over
Saudi-Lebanese relations, yet they fail
to explain Riyadh’s extraordinary step of
labeling Hezbollah a threat to the security
of the Gulf — such a grave danger that
the kingdom severely punished the Lebanese government for its failure to curtail
the organization’s activities. The Saudi
leadership’s decision to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization can more
usefully be interpreted as a response to
three more immediate trends: a marked
convergence of external security threats, a
notable weakening of Saudi clients in the
Lebanese political arena, and a resurgence
of internal challenges to the Saudi regime.
The conjunction of these factors compelled
Riyadh to take forceful steps to undercut
the party’s burgeoning power and prestige
as a regional actor.
THREATS FROM YEMEN,
IRAN AND IRAQ
By the winter of 2015-16, Riyadh confronted a broad range of external threats to
its basic security interests. The Saudi-led
military intervention in Yemen could boast
few if any successes on the battlefield.
At the same time, the Islamic Republic
of Iran accelerated its ballistic-missile
program and pointed to Saudi Arabia as a
potential target for the next generation of
intermediate-range weapons. Moreover,
the kingdom faced a rising danger from the
northwest, as paramilitary forces that had
mobilized inside Iraq to block the advance
of the Islamic State (al-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah) became increasingly active along the
Saudi Arabia-Iraq border.
Saudi troops, joined by contingents of
the armed forces of the United Arab Emir32
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Legrenzi / Lawson: Saudi Arabia Calls Out Hezbollah
Taizz and Ibb.7 Blocked from advancing
into the central provinces, the pro-Hadi
coalition found itself subjected to frequent
attacks from Islamic State suicide bombers
and lone-wolf assassins in the streets of
Aden and al-Hawtah, the capital of Lahij
province.8
Persistent in-fighting among rival
formations of radical Islamists made it
impossible for forces aligned with Hadi to
impose orderliness even in those districts
of the south where they held the upper
hand. Such internecine conflict, combined
with serious disagreements between Saudi
and UAE commanders concerning which
Islamist factions to tolerate, worked to the
distinct advantage of the Islamic State,
which extended its operations to areas
close to the Saudi border during the winter
of 2015-16.9 Attacks along the frontier by
Huthis, forces loyal to Salih and radical Islamists became routine occurrences during
February 2016.10
Equally important, by early 2016 the
beleaguered president was forced to rely
more heavily on the Southern Resistance,
whose platform — calling for the restoration of a substantial degree of administrative autonomy to Yemen’s southern provinces — fit uneasily with Riyadh’s longterm security interests.11 The increasing
leverage exercised by this conglomeration
of local militias aggravated latent friction
among the diverse components of the proHadi bloc. Intimations that the Southern
Resistance might revive the demand that
had been raised by the earlier Southern
Movement (al-Hirak al-Junubi) for full independence elicited a blunt warning from
the commander of the troops fighting the
Supporters of God in Marib province that
he would turn against his current allies if
any move toward secession were actually
undertaken.12
Indications that the Saudi-led coalition
might fracture re-energized Ansar alShariah, whose constituent forces jockeyed
with one another and with shadowy cells
of Salih’s supporters for control of the
provincial capitals of al-Hawtah and Zinjibar (Abyan), as well as the pivotal Aden
suburb of al-Mansurah.13 President Hadi
attempted to restore a modicum of unity
among his allies in early February 2016 by
appointing two moderate Southern Movement figures to senior ministerial posts,14
but the Saudi-sponsored government’s
prospects nevertheless looked bleak.15
It was under these circumstances that
Saudi Minister of Defense Muhammad bin
Salman Al Saud announced on December
14, 2015, that Riyadh intended to create a
new alliance of Islamic countries to fight
international terrorism.16 How exactly
this alliance might be structured, and
just which countries would constitute its
member-states, remained unclear. Provisional lists of members excluded Syria,
Iraq and Iran, prompting observers to
remark that the grouping exhibited a pronounced anti-Shii bent. A prominent Saudi
military officer nevertheless told reporters
that it would be possible for Tehran to join
the project, whenever the Islamic Republic
could prove that it was not a sponsor of
terrorist organizations.17 Lebanese officials
said they had not been notified in advance
that Beirut was going to be included on the
roster, and the prospective alliance elicited
even harsher criticism from the leadership
of Hezbollah.18
Meanwhile, Iran accelerated the pace
of its intermediate-range ballistic missile
(IRBM) program. An upgraded version
of the Shahab-3 IRBM, code-named the
Emad, was tested in early October 2015.
The new model had a range of 1,700
kilometers (approximately 1,100 miles)
33
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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Summer 2016
and incorporated an electronic guidance
system enabling it to strike targets with
a degree of precision that was unprecedented for weapons manufactured in the
Islamic Republic.19 In addition, U.S. officials determined that the missile had the
capacity to carry a nuclear warhead. The
initial test of the Emad came shortly after
a senior Iranian commander told reporters
that “Iranians must not be afraid of enemy
threats. We won the [1980-88] war with
Iraq with the least [sophisticated kinds of]
military equipment, but if [Ali] Khamenei
gave the orders today to attack Saudi Arabia, we have 2,000 rockets ready to set off
from Isfahan.”20 Another type of enhanced
IRBM, the Ghadr-110, was test-fired over
the Arabian Sea in late November 2015.21
Complaints from Washington and European capitals that the launches violated
UN Security Council Resolutions 1929
and 2231, as well as the spirit — if not
the actual letter — of the July 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, prompted
President Hassan Rouhani to issue a directive to the Iranian Ministry of Defense to
step up the development and deployment
of locally produced missiles.22 At the same
time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps (IRGC) carried out a naval exercise
that included firing ship-to-ship rockets in
the vicinity of an American aircraft carrier
operating near the Strait of Hormuz. On
January 5, 2016, Iranian state television
broadcast images of Speaker of Parliament
Ali Larijani touring an underground IRGC
storage facility that appeared to be fully
stocked with Emad missiles. The following month saw the first public display of
a new generation of IRBM, the two-stage
Simorgh, reportedly scheduled to be tested
at the beginning of March.23 In the event,
the Simorgh was not launched on that date,
although multiple tests of single-stage
Qadr-F, Qadr-H and Qiam-1 IRBMs were
carried out.24
Even as the Islamic Republic ramped
up the potential for missile attacks against
Saudi territory, the kingdom found itself
increasingly threatened as a result of developments in Iraq. Riyadh studiously kept
its northwestern neighbor at arm’s length
as violence escalated in the Iraqi border
province of al-Anbar during the winter of
2013-14.25 Yet in the wake of the Islamic
State’s June 2014 offensive, militias close
to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki turned
their anger and frustration in the direction
of the Saudi authorities.26 Saudi officials
reacted by making overtures to tribal leaders in al-Anbar and then deploying some
30,000 troops to guard the frontier.27 The
heightened military presence in the border
zone elicited a mortar barrage against Saudi positions by fighters loyal to al-Maliki
in early July.28 In the wake of this strike,
Saudi commanders started to construct a
heavily fortified fence along the border,
complete with thermal imaging devices
and infrared cameras.
A subsequent attack against Saudi
forces stationed on the frontier took place
in early January 2015, this time by Islamic
State fighters.29 By the end of May, however, the Islamic State had been driven out
of the southern reaches of al-Anbar by the
loose collection of pro-government militias
called the Popular Mobilization Forces
(Quwwat al-Hashd al-Shabi), operating in
conjunction with the Iran-sponsored Party
of God Battalions (Kataib Hizbullah).30
Commanders of Kataib Hizbullah asserted
that al-Anbar province constituted a vital
logistical link between Iran and Syria that
needed to be secured by a permanent garrison. They then deployed several shortrange missile batteries southeast of Ramadi
and reportedly aimed them toward Saudi
34
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Legrenzi / Lawson: Saudi Arabia Calls Out Hezbollah
territory. Increasing Iranian activism in
southern Iraq set the stage for a crisis that
September between Tehran and Kuwait
in which a group of Kuwaiti citizens was
charged with planning to carry out an
armed insurrection with the assistance of
Iranian embassy personnel.31 The alleged
plot was attributed to Lebanon-based
Hezbollah.
Soon after he assumed his post in
December 2015, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Baghdad gave an interview to Iraqi
television, during which he observed that
the Popular Mobilization Forces should
turn the struggle against the Islamic State
over to Iraq’s regular army, so as not
to inflame intersectarian animosity any
further.32 Members of the Iraqi national
assembly charged that the ambassador was
meddling in domestic politics; the foreign
ministry warned that, if he continued to
“interfere” in the country’s internal affairs,
he would be declared persona non grata.
The incident, which occurred in the wake
of Saudi Arabia’s execution of the prominent dissident Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr,
sent anti-Saudi sentiment soaring among
Iraqi Shiis.33 The Iran-backed Bands of the
People of Truth (Asaib Ahl al-Haqq) and
Badr Organization (Munazzamah al-Badr)
demanded that Baghdad sever diplomatic
relations with Riyadh in response to alNimr’s killing. These paramilitary organizations redoubled their vituperation against
the kingdom after the Iraqi authorities
tried to dampen the ensuing crisis between
Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Bands of the
People of Truth had already threatened to
send newly formed Special Forces units
into Saudi Arabia to destroy unspecified
facilities if al-Nimr were put to death.34
As tensions mounted between Riyadh
and Iraq’s predominantly Shii pro-government militias, the Saudi armed forces host-
ed large-scale military exercises with GCC,
Egyptian, Jordanian, Tunisian, Senegalese
and Pakistani troops at the northern end of
the Gulf. These exercises, called Northern Thunder, entailed “direct offensive
missions in the management of guerrilla
operations.”35 The maneuvers led Kataib
Hizbullah and the Popular Mobilization
Front’s Abu Fadl al-Abbas Battalions to
reinforce their forward positions adjacent
to Iraq’s southern border.36 More important,
representatives of the Popular Mobilization
Forces traveled to Damascus to confer with
Syrian officials about how best to manage their common security interests.37 In
Riyadh’s view, the visit confirmed the intimate connection between Iran-sponsored
militias in Iraq, on one hand, and Lebanonbased Hezbollah and other pro-Baathi
militias in Syria, on the other. The danger
associated with this linkage was underscored by reports that the IRGC’s elite
Jerusalem (al-Quds) Force had joined fighters from Kataib Hizbullah and the Popular
Mobilization Forces in southern al-Anbar
province, and pushed Iraq’s regular armed
forces out of the region.38
LESS SAUDI INFLUENCE IN
LEBANON
Lebanese politics remained deadlocked
between two broad camps from 2009 to
2015. On one side stood an assortment of
electoral-reform and anti-Syria parties,
generally known as the March 14 Alliance;
the other camp consisted of a collection
of electoral-procedures-preservation and
pro-Syria movements led by Hezbollah,
known as the March 8 Alliance.39 The
pervasive stasis that characterized the
domestic political system became more
deeply entrenched after Michel Sulaiman
relinquished the presidency in May 2014
and the two camps proved incapable of
35
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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Summer 2016
finding a mutually acceptable successor.
giving Geagea a strong incentive to
As presidential and parliamentary poliwithdraw from the race and endorse Aoun
tics stagnated, street protests became the
for the post.42 Left without its preferred
primary means of exercising influence over candidate, the Saudi government signaled
policy making.
that it, too, would back Franjiyyah.43 In
sharp contrast to Riyadh’s position, Doha
Under these circumstances, the
openly praised Geagea for the “wisdom”
conventional politicians who headed the
of his decision to defer to Aoun. Hezbollah
hierarchical and regimented parties of the
threw its weight behind Aoun as well, but
March 14 Alliance found themselves at a
met strong
disadvantage
resistance
relative to
Hezbollah’s burgeoning influence at the
from Speaker
the leaders of
pinnacle
of
Lebanese
politics
generated
of Parliament
the popular
friction inside the government of Prime
Nabih Birri
movements
and other
that made up Minister Salam, culminating in the
of
the March
abrupt resignation of Minister of Justice members
the March 8
8 Alliance.
Ashraf Rifi, who charged on his way out
Alliance.44
Hezbollah’s
Consequently,
Hassan Nasthe door that the Party of God’s actions
rullah proved were endangering Lebanon’s historic ties Geagea abandoned his
to be particuto the Arab world.
Saudi patrons
larly adept at
and consolimobilizing
dated ties to Hezbollah in order to ensure a
the party’s constituents and fellow travelvictory for Aoun.45
ers: On the occasion of the Shii festival
of Ashurah in October 2015, for instance,
As January 2016 drew to a close, GeaNasrullah railed against both the ongoing
gea did his best to convince the Saudi govparalysis of the Lebanese government and
ernment that Aoun would distance himself
the evils of Saudi military intervention in
from Hezbollah once he took office, so his
Yemen, eliciting chants of “Death to the
election would end up splitting the March
Al Saud” from his massed supporters.40
8 Alliance.46 Riyadh remained skeptical,
The Party of God accrued further strength
however, and the attempt to reconcile with
and prestige that winter, due to a fortuitous the Al Saud damaged Geagea’s rapprochestring of successes in skirmishes with the
ment with Hezbollah.47 Just as matters
41
Israel Defense Forces.
were coming to a head, the Saudi-owned
December 2015 brought renewed
television station al-Arabiyyah broadcast a
efforts to install a president, with Michel
documentary about Nasrullah that porAoun, Samir Geagea and Sulaiman Frantrayed him in particularly positive terms,
jiyyah …
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