Free Republic

What interpretation of Islam influ enced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia -- known as Wahhabism to most of us of who denounce it. Confronting the role of radical Islam here is not Islamophobic, but common sense -- and the first response moderate Muslims themselves will have. Hasan, though born in America, refused to have his picture taken with women -- an attitude distinct to fundamentalist radicalism among Muslims. The Prophet Mohammed cautioned his followers that when they go to live in non-Muslim lands they must accept the laws...

A man who kidnapped and raped five children, one of whom was left in the desert to die, has been sentenced to be beheaded and his body publicly crucified. Muhammed Basheer al-Ramaly, 22, from the northern city of Hail, will be executed at noon today, according to Saudi reports. He will be beheaded by sword then his body tied to a wooden cross and his head stuck on a pole as a deterrent to other would-be killers. Al-Ramaly was found guilty in February of abducting and raping five boys, the eldest of whom was 7 and the youngest, 3, whom...

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported on Tuesday. The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said. ... In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.

In a spirit of bi-partisanship and to celebrate the one year anniversary of President Obama’s victory, I thought it would be nice to come up with a list of what I consider to be Obama’s top accomplishments since last November. So here are some of them, in no particular order. Feel free to add more.

Revenge of the Pigs Fears for the Hajj Raised thelastcrusade.org. Pigs may get their revenge against Islam.They have been classified as filth (najasa) by shariah (Muslim) law.A Muslim must purify himself of anything made impure by contact with a pig.Swine are considered as vile and disgusting as “non-Muslims at war with Muslims, apostates from Islam, convicted married adulterers, and biting dogs.”Yet more Muslims are likely to die of swine flu this year than the adherrents of any other religion.The mass Islamic infection of the H1N1 virus is expected to occur during the five day hajj that will take place...

LONDON, England For Saudi Arabia's lone female cartoonist drawing is more than just satire, it's "a duty." "I think men have put women in an unfavorable position in this part of the world. They've put women in an oppressive situation," said Hana Hajjar, who works for the English-language newspaper Arab News. "I feel it is my duty towards women to speak out on their behalf, because I have the tools and venue to do so," she told CNN. Hajjar's drawings both challenge gender roles and critique political policy, often depicting inequality between the sexes and support for the Palestinian people,...

BEIJING — China will give swine flu vaccinations to thousands of Muslims about to make the annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, state media said, as authorities reported the mainland's third death from the illness. Concerns over the hajj, which attracts about 3 million Muslims every year to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have led several countries to impose travel bans over fears the mass gathering could speed the spread of swine flu. Arab health ministers in July banned children, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses from attending this year. All of China's 12,700 Muslims making the pilgrimage...

If one were to believe what many on the Left in America say, the inmates at the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are nothing but innocent pilgrims and goat herders who all ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The latest is a distinguished gentleman named Yousef Mohammed al Shihri. This innocent shepherd (we’ll call him “Yo Mo” for short) was no doubt improperly incarcerated by the evil American empire after being snatched from his benevolent wanderings in beautiful, picturesque Afghanistan several years ago.

(English-language translation) RIYAHD - A Saudi woman has filed for divorce after casually discovering that her husband nicknamed her "Guantánamo" on his cellular telephone, the daily Al Watan reported. According to the newspaper, the 30-year-old woman who lives in the western city of Jeddah called her husband on his cell phone. He had left it at home, and that is how the woman discovered that, when identifying the call, the name "Guantánamo" appeared on the screen. The furious woman immediately began divorce proceedings assuming that, being given that nickname, her husband was considering her a tyrannical and oppressive person and,...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The two al-Qaida militants killed in a recent shootout sneaked into Saudi Arabia from Yemen and were planning to carry out a massive attack, the Interior Ministry spokesman said Sunday. Four explosive belts — three of them ready to use — were found in the car used by the militants in Tuesday's shootout which suggests that at least four people were going to take part in the attack, ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press.

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Four years after Khalid al-Jehani's release from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the 34-year-old Saudi lives a peaceful life in this sprawling coastal city. He has a car, a job and a well-furnished apartment -- courtesy of the Saudi government. The rehabilitation of militants such as Jehani has convinced the Obama administration that Saudi Arabia is the ideal place to send dozens of Yemenis being held at Guantanamo. For months, U.S. officials have applied pressure on Riyadh. But Saudi officials say their success with former detainees such as Jehani lies in members of...

Petropolitics: If there's a bright spot to greenhouse gasbags curtailing carbon output, it's watching the Saudis squirm. The sheiks worry they may have to make do with one or two fewer yachts. During recent U.N. talks over global emissions cuts, Saudi Arabia quietly demanded that OPEC states get special financial aid if a new climate pact calls for big cuts in fossil-fuel use. The kingdom's whimpering comes despite a new International Energy Agency report showing OPEC revenues would still grow $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a fourfold jump compared with the 1985-2007 period — if countries agree to...

Two men suspected of being al-Qaeda members and a police officer have been killed in a shoot-out at a checkpoint in Saudi Arabia, officials say. Shots were fired after a female police officer approached a vehicle to check the identities of the passengers - two of whom were disguised as women. A third man was arrested and state media quoted an official as saying there were more weapons in the vehicle. The shooting happened in Jizan province on the southern border with Yemen. Interior Ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki said the suspects were wearing explosive vests and had grenades, automatic...

"Growing security concerns over Gulf neighbor and perennial troublemaker Iran are pushing the Saudis to upgrade their air fleet with a particular emphasis on precision strike aircraft," the U.S. defense website DoD Buzz reported. Industry sources said Riyad has been discussing the procurement of up to 72 advanced F-15 fighters. They said the Saudi order could include the purchase of Boeing's latest stealth design for the F-15, titled Silent Eagle. DoD Buzz, citing industry and defense sources, said the Defense Department would approve any Saudi request for the F-15. The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which processes requests for major...

"A Saudi cleric named Sheikh Muhammad al-Munajid has promised on Saudi TV that the virgins we Muslims will get in paradise will be white. If you blow yourself up in a martyrdom operation, you’ll be rewarded with 72 pure women, and not one of them will be black or Indian, or even Arab or Iranian. …in Paradise, a man gets the strength of 100 men when it comes to eating, drinking, passion and sex." Ahhh, how delightful that paradise! Truly worth blowing oneself up, becoming a shahid and enjoying passion and sex like a hundred men all at once for...

For those of you who are not familiar with the term, Chutzpa it means unmitigated gall. It has best been described as a man who kills his father and mother and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan. Saudi Arabia has Chutzpah. The oil-rich country and de facto leader of OPEC has been milking the rest of the world for decades by helping to keep oil prices artificially high. Now it it is saying that it might need a bailout. It is telling the world that if climate change protocols are...

GAO report: Saudis are top fianciers of Taliban WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Saudi Arabia continues to be the leading source of funding to Al Qaida and is also the top financial backer of Taliban. ShareThis A report the Government Accountability Office said the Saudi government did not appear to be involved in the funding, but that Saudi funds to both Al Qaida and Taliban has helped finance the war against NATO in Afghanistan. GAO said Saudis were the chief source of funding to Taliban. The report said couriers were transporting cash from Saudi Arabia and other...

(CNN) -- A Saudi court on Wednesday sentenced a man who caused uproar by bragging about his sex life on television to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes, according to Ministry of Information officials. Mazen Abdul Jawad talked openly about his sex life on the controversial show. Mazen Abdul Jawad, a 32-year-old airline employee and divorced father of four, spoke openly about his sexual escapades, his love of sex and losing his virginity at age 14. He made the comments on Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, which aired the interview a few months ago. Saudi authorities shut down LBC offices in...

Saudi Arabia is weighing buying an advanced Russian missile system to shore up its defence against a potentially nuclear Iran, Gulf analysts and diplomats said. They said Moscow and Riyadh are close to sealing a deal on a multi-billion-dollar weapons package that could include Russia's advanced S-400 missile defence system. It is the newest version of the S-300 long-range surface to air missile system that Moscow has been in discussion for several years to sell to Iran, which denies Western charges of aiming to become a nuclear power. But heavy Western and Israeli pressure and a possibly more lucrative deal...

The Muslim World League (MWL) is a Saudi Arabia-based international organization that promulgates a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam around the world through a large network of charities and affiliated organizations. In recent years, the MWL's has attempted to portray itself as a broad global Islamist organization, outwardly emphasizing tolerant aspects of Islam and promoting itself as a leader in interfaith dialogue. Its ideological backbone, however, is based on an extremist interpretation of Islam and several of its affiliated groups and individuals have been linked to terror-related activity. "The King Abdullah Interfaith Dialogue Initiative," a gathering of interfaith leaders is sponsored...

Intelligence chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran's new nuclear site. The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom. The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America's former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that "Riyadh certainly approves" of Israel's use of Saudi...

When Lulwah Abdul Rahman protested against her father's rejection of all would-be husbands because they were from outside her tribe, her life and career were shattered. Her father locked her in the family home, revoked her right to work at a bank and beat her. When she filed a case to lift her father's guardianship, he consigned her to a mental institution to "discipline" her, she says. "The laws and the society confer absolute power on the father and brother, regardless of how cruel or incompetent they are,'' says Ms Abdul Rahman, 28, who has fled her home and currently...

JEDDAH – Suicide bomber Abdullah Asiri had inserted around half a kilogram of explosives into his own body to carry out his failed assassination attempt of Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, last week. As more details emerged of the events surrounding the attack that took place at the Prince’s home in Obhur, sources told Okaz newspaper Friday that Asiri’s mobile telephone was equipped with two SIM cards, one of which was used to speak to call members of the terrorist organization in Yemen, and the other to detonate the device located inside Asiri’s rectum...

CHICAGO (AP) — A 29-year-old Illinois man who idolized American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has been arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse, officials said Thursday. Michael C. Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested Wednesday and charged in a criminal complaint with one count of attempting to murder federal officers or employees and trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. Federal officials said the case has no connections with the major terrorism investigation under way in Colorado and New York. "This alleged plot drives home...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A 29-year-old man has been arrested on charges that he allegedly planned to bomb a federal courthouse in Illinois and kill employees there. Federal officials say the case has no connections with the major terrorism investigation under way in Colorado and New York.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia and his son, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, have many enemies. For decades, the powerful and unaccountable elder Prince Nayef has “overseen” the Saudi police force; Nayef once boasted that his law enforcement agency solves 100 percent of the kingdom’s annual crimes. Al-Qaeda was quick to take credit for the suicide bombing (according to SITE). After all, it was a major public relations coup. For starters, the royals had been tricked — promised surrender and instead given a Trojan horse. Saudi’s princes pride themselves on having impenetrable personal security systems. Instead,...

Jammed with equipment most scientists can only dream of and sporting one of the world's fastest supercomputers, King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) was to be officially unveiled late afternoon by King Abdullah with an audience of top world scientists and a handful of leaders. KAUST with its flashy three-dimensional imaging facilities and other modern hardware worth some 1.5 billion dollars, is a keystone of the 85-year-old king's effort to modernise the oil-rich kingdom, underscored by its launch on the Saudi national day.

Exporting Oil and Ideology by: Sarah Carlsruh, September 17, 2009 An Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) Seminar was held September 10th, the eve of 9/11, dedicated to those that died that day. Sarah Stern, President of EMET, reminded attendees that, out of the fifteen terrorists involved in the attack, eleven were from Saudi Arabia. The conference’s topic, consequently, was Saudi penetration into America’s national infrastructure. The common theme among many of the speakers she invited to attend was oil and Islam. Islam, as former CIA director James Woolsey pointed out, is not inherently a violent religion but Saudi Arabia...

A suicide bomber detonated explosives hidden inside his mobile phone on Friday in an attempt to assassinate the head of Saudi Arabia’s antiterrorism efforts, the official news agency reported from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the deputy interior minister who is widely credited with orchestrating a harsh crackdown against Al Qaeda militants in the kingdom, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries. He was later shown on Saudi television meeting with the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah. Prince Nayef is the son of the interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz , who is third in line...

Renewed fighting in northern Yemen between government and rebel forces is feeding fears that a Middle Eastern proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is spreading to the ungoverned spaces of the southern Arabian peninsula. But western analysts are staring boggle-eyed at quite a different spectre: the prospect that the biggest beneficiaries of Yemeni weakness will be the fanatical jihadis of al-Qaida. UN agencies raised the alarm last week after 55,000 people, mostly women and children, fled clashes in and around Sa'ada city in northern Yemen between the forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's Sunni-led government and the Zaydi Shia...

RIYADH: The family of Osama bin Laden has announced the death of one of the terror mastermind's brothers. In a full-page notice on Sunday in Al-Riyadh newspaper, the family said Thabet bin Laden passed away and the funeral is scheduled that afternoon in the holy city of Makkah. The notice said he died Saturday but did not give the cause of death or his age. Thabet bin Laden was one of 54 children born to Mohammed bin Laden, a poor Yemeni immigrant who started the family contracting business in the 1930s that grew into a multimillion dollar construction empire. The...

Saudis Eye Buying 72 F-15s By Greg Grant Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 2:33 pm Posted in Air, International, Policy Saudi Arabia is close to placing an order for as many as 72 Boeing F-15 fighter jets, industry and defense sources tell us. Growing security concerns over Gulf neighbor and perennial troublemaker Iran are pushing the Saudis to upgrade their air fleet with a particular emphasis on precision strike aircraft. The Pentagon is expected to approve the sale as it seeks to counter Iran’s recent break-out as a regional power and quell nervousness among Gulf Arab states troubled by Iran’s growing...

NEW YORK – Saudi Arabia is cooperating with Israel on the Iranian nuclear issue, an Egyptian intelligence official told WND. The official said Saudi Arabia is passing intelligence information to Israel related to Iran. He affirmed a report from the Arab media, strongly denied by the Israeli government, that Saudi Arabia has granted Israel overflight permission during any attack against Iran's nuclear facilities. The official previously told WND that Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, has been involved in an intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort urging the U.S. and other Western countries to do everything necessary to ensure Iran does...

Energy Policy: Ignoring peak-oil Cassandras, BP has made another giant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. We're not running out of oil. Our government just doesn't want us to look for it.The world is running out of oil and good riddance. That's the environmentalists' mantra. But since the first well was drilled near Titusville, Pa., 150 years ago, the prophecy has gone unfulfilled. Trouble is, those darn greedy oil companies keep finding the stuff. Oil has been produced in the Gulf of Mexico since the first well was drilled by Kerr-McGee Corp. in 1947. Some of the wells are...

A suicide bomber failed in his attempt to kill the prince who heads Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign, the first attack on a member of the royal family since the start of a wave of violence by Al-Qaeda six years ago. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the deputy interior minister, was meeting well-wishers on Thursday when a man blew himself up, a ministry spokesman said. Al Arabiya television showed Prince Mohammed, apparently slightly injured, meeting King Abdullah after the attack. Prince Mohammed told King Abdullah that the attacker was a wanted militant who had indicated he was going to turn himself in....

SNIPPET: "RIYADH: A suicide bomber lightly wounded a senior prince largely credited for Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign when he blew himself up just before going into a gathering of well-wishers for the Muslim holy month of Ramazan, the state news agency said Friday. It was the first known assassination attempt against a member of the royal family since Saudi Arabia began its crackdown on al-Qaeda affiliated militants eight years ago following the September 11 terror attacks in the United States." SNIPPET: "It said the prince, who is the son of Interior Minister Prince Nayef, was discharged from the hospital and...

[this is an AP-sourced story which begins by comparing the well-known UN Heritage site Petra, which is in Jordan and a huge tourist attraction, with Madain Saleh, another lost city of the Nabateans, but basically unknown because it's in Saudi Arabia. It continues by discussing the hostility and vandalism directed at pre-Islamic artifacts and sites in the Kingdom, and a virtual ban on publications regarding them.]

SNIPPET: "Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz died in Jeddah last Saturday." SNIPPET: "The serial libel tourist Khalid bin Mahfouz is dead. But the jihad against the West he helped fund, together with pernicious British libel tourism practices, are alive and well. Unfortunately, the U.S. government did nothing to stop his activities on either front when he was alive. Now Congress has the opportunity to reverse Mahfouz’s legacy of libel tourism. New York State, Florida and Illinois have already passed anti- libel tourism laws, and another was just passed unanimously by the California legislature." SNIPPET: "A law to protect Americans free...

Swine flu, economic downturn overshadow Ramadan by Paul Handley 1 hr 57 mins ago RIYADH (AFP) – Muslims entered the fasting and feasting month of Ramadan on Saturday with swine flu and the economic downturn adding to the security fears that plague several Islamic countries in dampening the mood. The threat from the A(H1N1) virus prompted a string of governments to bar their citizens from making the pilgrimage to the holy places in Saudi Arabia traditionally made by many Muslims during Ramadan, while financial worries forced many families to cut back on their holiday spending. In the Saudi cities of...

Energy Policy: New York's governor wants to tap into a shale formation that can supply the entire U.S. with natural gas for 65 years. Will NIMBY environmentalists let him stimulate New York's and America's energy economy? Last week, David Patterson released a draft report of his Energy Planning Board that does something Democrats are loath to do: It proposes developing a domestic energy resource — the huge amounts of natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation. New York produces 5% of its natural gas in-state and imports more than 95% from the Gulf Coast and Canada. The Marcellus Shale...

With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants. The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

Energy Policy: New York's governor wants to tap into a shale formation that can supply the entire U.S. with natural gas for 65 years. Will NIMBY environmentalists let him stimulate New York's and America's energy economy?Last week, David Patterson released a draft report of his Energy Planning Board that does something Democrats are loath to do: It proposes developing a domestic energy resource — the huge amounts of natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation. New York produces 5% of its natural gas in-state and imports more than 95% from the Gulf Coast and Canada. The Marcellus Shale stretches...

Cap-And-Trade: The administration likes to defend bad policies with analogies to the post office. New studies from a business group and the administration itself confirm that cap-and-trade belongs in the dead-letter bin.Along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Ed Markey likens the cost of the Waxman-Markey cap-and trade bill to "about a postage stamp a day," based on estimates made by the Congressional Budget Office and the EPA. But as we and others have shown, they arrive at this magical number in part by ignoring the hit on gross domestic product and employment that will occur. As Garret Vaughan, economist...

Saudi Arabia may bar Haj pilgrims below six years and above 65 years due to swine flu fears, a media report said Wednesday. Jeddah was yet to convey its decision to the governments across the globe that coordinate the Haj by their Muslim citizens every year, New Age newspaper said. In Bangladesh’s case, the number of pilgrims this year may be slashed by half. “We don’t have any specific information about how many pilgrims will not able to go for Haj if the ban (is) imposed, but the number can come down to half,” said Shahjahan Mia, Bangladesh’s state minister...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Authorities have closed an office of an Arab TV station after it broadcast an interview with a Saudi man speaking frankly about sex and showed off erotic toys, a Saudi official said Sunday. Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, the spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Information, told The Associated Press that the office of LBC, a Lebanese-based satellite TV station, in the western city of Jiddah was closed because of the program and because it is unlicensed. "The closure is indefinite," al-Hazza said. The Saudi man, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, has been in detention since last Friday. Abdul-Jawad, a 32-year-old...

As Palin pointed out to Salazar, the USGS assessment "estimates that Arctic Alaska has mean technically recoverable resources of approximately 30 billion barrels of oil, 6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 221 trillion cubic feet of conventional natural gas."

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Does Islam frown on nose jobs? Chemical peels? How about breast implants? One of the clerics with the answers is Sheik Mohammed al-Nujaimi, and Saudi women flock to him for guidance about going under the knife. The results may not see much light of day in a kingdom where women cover up from head to toe, yet cosmetic surgery is booming. Religion covers every facet of life in Saudi Arabia, including plastic surgery. Al-Nujaimi draws his guidelines from the consensus that was reached three years ago when clergymen and plastic surgeons met in Riyadh to determine...

Sad that Saudi Arabia has to tell Obama what the real priorities are. It's a carryover from community organizing: "If you can't solve the big thing, then just solve anything - any movement is better than none at all."

This was not a good week for President Obama's attempt at a Middle East peace. Over the past seven days, the four Horsemen of the Obamaclypse visited Israel to try and strong-arm the Jewish state into making poor decisions about her security. This was followed by the other side of Obama's plan beginning to fall apart: Saudi Arabia on Friday sharply rejected American calls for gestures toward Israel, a central component of US efforts to pave the way for peace talks. "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach has not and - we believe - will not achieve peace. Temporary security, confidence-building...

Majority of advanced RAF jets go to Saudi Arabia The RAF will lose half of its most sophisticated batch of Eurofighter Typhoon with the majority going to Saudi Arabia it was disclosed after a deal for the final group of aircraft was announced. By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent Published: 7:27PM BST 31 Jul 2009 Despite spending more than £16 billion on the project over the last two decades the British are now going to end up with less than half of Typhoons from the Tranche 3 group. The Tranche 3 aircraft are specifically designed with built-in ground-attack capabilities that would...