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Tony Badran, Now Lebanon January 23, 2015 Israel dealt Iran a painful blow on Sunday when it struck a convoy of senior Iranian and Hezbollah commanders in Quneitra in the Golan Heights. Some Israeli former security officials have explained the strike as preemptive action against an imminent attack on northern Israel. They pointed to an interview by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah three days before, in which he talked about his fighters making incursions into the Galilee in the next war with Israel. Another anonymous Israeli official claimed that the presence of a high-ranking Iranian general in the convoy was a...

A damning report by Palestinian legislators, which has been seen by the Telegraph, concludes that Mr Arafat did nothing to stop the deals although he publicly condemned the structure as a "crime against humanity"... The report reveals that the cement originally came from Egyptian companies which supplied it at a huge discount of $22 (£12.50) a ton to help rebuild dilapidated Palestinian houses or buildings bulldozed by the Israelis. Between September 2003 and March this year, 420,000 tons of cement were allegedly sent to three big Palestinian companies. According to the report, however, only 33,000 tons were sold in...

In response to the growing threat posed by the Islamic State terrorist group, the royal family of Saudi Arabia is having a 600-mile barrier constructed to completely block the Iraqi portion of the Saudi northern border, hoping to prevent ISIS militants from infiltrating the kingdom. The planned fence structure will span the entire distance of the Iraq-Saudi border, from Jordan to Kuwait. The border barrier system will feature five layers of barbed wire fencing, a ditch, a patrol road, 240 rapid response vehicles, underground motion sensors, 40 watchtowers, radar, day/night cameras, seven command centers, 28 communication towers, 32 military response...

Homeland Security: To keep out Islamic State terrorists, the Saudis are building a 600-mile-long barrier — complete with five layers of fencing, underground movement censors and radar cameras — on their northern border. If they can do it ... Good fences, it is said, make for good neighbors, which on a grand scale was the intent of the Great Wall of China in antiquity and the Israeli fences of more recent vintage. Both were designed to keep out intruders and to make sure all guests were invited guests. Unlike the Berlin Wall, they were built to keep hostiles out, not...

Middle Eastern Kingdom building 600-mile wall and ditch along its border with Iraq in effort to insulate itself from the chaos engulfing its neighbours. When a raiding party from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant attacked a Saudi border post last week, it was no mere hit on a desert outpost. The jihadists were launching an assault on the new, highest profile effort by Saudi Arabia to insulate itself from the chaos engulfing its neighbours. The Saudis are building a 600-mile-long “Great Wall” - a combined fence and ditch - to separates the country from Iraq to the north....

Saudi Arabia has charted a long-term course to drive down oil prices and maintain its major share of the global market—and a change of who is on the throne in Riyadh won’t likely alter this course, energy experts said. Even after the death of King Abdullah, announced early Friday, the kingdom is likely to continue to pump crude in the face of a global glut, which has helped push prices down by more than 55% since last June. Surrounded by unrest and uncertainty in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is protecting itself by exploiting its big advantages—huge oil reserves and...

Comments from world leaders in response to the death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who died early Friday in Riyadh.

The King Is Dead, Long Live the KingPosted By Robert Spencer On January 23, 2015 @ 12:58 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 3 Comments Abdullah was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Old Abdullah was as dead as a door-nail.So what now?The crown prince, Abdullah’s half-brother, Prince Salman, has taken over, but it might not be that easy. After all, it wasn’t too many years ago that people were speculating about what Egypt would be like under the rule of Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal. And the accession of a 79-year-old to the throne does not...

(Note: This was written a month ago) With 91-year-old Abdullah’s hospitalization with pneumonia Jan. 2, all eyes in Saudi Arabia immediately turned to Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, the defense minister and the king’s 79-year-old half-brother. Yet due to Salman’s own deteriorating health – those close to the palace say the crown prince is suffering from the early stages of dementia – a campaign is growing within Riyadh to bypass Salman and give the throne to Deputy Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, 69, another of the king’s half brothers, should Abdullah be deemed unfit to rule. Both the crown prince...

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah died early on Friday and his brother Salman became king, the royal court in the world's top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam said in a statement carried by state television.

(CNN) —Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud has died, according to an announcement on Saudi state TV. He was 90. The next king will be Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, state television reported. The announcement of his death comes several weeks after the state-run Saudi Press Agency said Abdullah was suffering from pneumonia and had been admitted to the hospital....

DUBAI - A Saudi journalist and a member of the royal family denied rumors on Thursday that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, in hospital since December suffering from pneumonia, had died, according to messages on social media. "All that is being reported about King Abdullah's death is far from the truth," Ibrahem al-Rawsa, identified as a journalist at state-run Saudi Press Agency, wrote on his Twitter account. A member of the royal family wrote: "I give you good news. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques is fine and there is no truth to the rumors going around." He was referring...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102292477

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah is being treated for pneumonia and his condition has stabilized with the help of a breathing tube, according to a Royal Court statement issued Friday. The statement, which was released by Saudi state media, said the monarch, 90, had been transferred Thursday to a military hospital after experiencing shortness of breath and back pain. The Saudi Royal Court said medical tests showed the king had a respiratory infection. […] The health of the monarch is of extreme importance in the kingdom, where Abdullah holds absolute powers to enact laws and appoint ministers. His condition is also...

Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is "rapid" action. "If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month," he said in remarks quoted on Saturday by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station. "Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East," said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a...

SMILED as soon as he heard the most famous war cry of Islam, “bismillah al-rahman al-rahim,” Arabic for “in the name of Allah the most gracious, the most merciful.” Watch Obama smile as soon as Bergdahl gives the most famous Muslim expression, the “Bismillah” or the “Basmallah”: ... The “basmallah” is the Islamic expression for victory and only indicates that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s father is a Muslim. Think that the man is acting as “Muslim” for a stealth operation to rescue his son who is already in good hands in Germany? And what is with the long beard and trimmed...

The strange thing about the crackup in U.S.-Saudi relations is that it has been on the way for more than two years, like a slow-motion car wreck, but nobody in Riyadh or Washington has done anything to avert it. Snip//follow on to freep Red Badger//

When President Obama declares something a "success story," you know it has "TOTAL FAILURE" embedded in its DNA. Four months ago, America's King Midas in Reverse crowed about the fruits of his triumphant foreign policy in jihad-infested Yemen. A "light footprint" approach to counterterrorism operations, he claimed, was the most effective path to stability. In addition, Obama has shoveled nearly $1 billion in American tax-subsidized foreign aid to Yemen. Four months later, Iran-backed Shia rebels seized a Yemeni presidential palace. The president and his entire cabinet tendered their resignations on Thursday, creating a vacuum that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula...

The role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe. On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM. On the launch pad...

Intercepted conversations between representatives of the Iranian and Argentine governments point to a long pattern of secret negotiations to reach a deal in which Argentina would receive oil in exchange for shielding Iranian officials from charges that they orchestrated the bombing of a Jewish community center in 1994. The transcripts were made public by an Argentine judge on Tuesday night, as part of a 289-page criminal complaint written by Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor investigating the attack. Mr. Nisman was found dead in his luxury apartment on Sunday, the night before he was to present his findings to Congress. In...