Saudi Arabia is wary of its citizens returning from the fighting in Syria. This is why it has decided to produce a list of harsh punishments in an attempt to avoid the potentially violent repercussions it may confront when the time arrives for settling accounts
Fu’ad Ibrahim - al Akhbar (Beirut)
(translated by Mideast Mirror Ltd)
No Royal edict is issued in Saudi Arabia except when it has to do with unseating or appointing an emir, or with sovereign issues that require a decision from the highest authority in the state.
The edict issued on Monday– the fixed date for the Saudi cabinet’s weekly meetings – clearly indicates that the matter addressed falls outside the cabinet’s authority and requires what can best be described as a ‘written undertaking’ from the King himself. There are three implicit messages in this edict:
- Message number one: It was issued against the background of a media clamor regarding a visit that U.S. President Barack Obama is supposed to pay to Riyadh at the end of March. Early this month [February], the American press– such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times – reported on this supposed visit, but the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh issued a hurried response the following day stressing that ‘the White House has said nothing regarding this matter.’ A spokesman for the embassy said: ‘The embassy has no information regarding this visit and cannot comment on it.’
But as soon as the Royal edict was issued on February 3rd, the White House announced that Obama would be visiting Riyadh before the end of March. In short, this is what this edict – which incidentally is the longest in the history of such edicts matched only by those concerning the Saudi budget – is all about: It is an unequivocal denunciation of all terrorist actions in which Saudi citizens has proven to be involved whether they are civilians, military personnel, preachers, inciters, donors, or glorifiers of extremist religious and ideological groups, along with a commitment to inflict the harshest punishment on them.
Our information suggests at the end of 2013 American officials presented the Saudis with a huge file that includes documents conclusively proving Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the terrorism that is striking Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, and all the way up to Russia. The file is now in the hands of the international community, which may push for a UN Security Council denunciation classifying Saudi Arabia as a state sponsoring terrorism around the world.
The American message reached Saudi Arabia loud and clear. Its substance was that it would be impossible to accept terrorism as part of the Strategic Protection and Defense Treaty signed between King ‘Abdulaziz and President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s, and that terrorism would have to be addressed on the assumption that it has an international character that goes beyond the confines of bilateral treaties.
Saudi Arabia sensed the fateful danger looming ahead. The matter called for a rapid stance from the most senior level in the country. In fact, there are some in the royal family who understood the American message as a precondition for Obama’s visit to Riyadh, one that would be necessary to rid him of the embarrassment he would feel before the U.S.’s allies and the international community in general, both of whom no longer have any doubt that Saudi Arabia is implicated in the majority of terrorist activities in the region, and the world as a whole.
- Message number two: The edict sent a clear message to Saudi civilian and military fighters, first in Syria, then in Iraq, Lebanon, and elsewhere, to the effect that a dire end awaits them should they decide to return home. To prevent them from facing a dark fate and terrible punishment, they would have to remain outside Saudi Arabian territory, and complete their march towards inevitable death, or scatter to other battlefields. This was the fate of the first wave of ‘Afghani Arabs’ and the subsequent waves that emerged in Iraq after 2003, and in Lebanon after the Nahr al-Bared battle [between the Lebanese Army and Sunni extremists] late in 2007. Now, this same fate awaits the new waves that have emerged in Syria after the agreement between [Saudi Intelligence Head and former CIA head] Bandar and Petraeus in the summer of 2012.
There is no doubting the fact that such a harsh Royal edict amounts to a poisonous stab in the back administered by the official sponsor [of terrorism] represented by Bandar bin Sultan whose mission has been ended by the edict. Judging from their reactions in the social media networks and the Internet, al-Qa’ida’s supporters have displayed a sweeping anger at Saudi Arabia for deceiving the fighters again and again – from Afghanistan to Iraq to Lebanon, and now Syria. The result is that many Saudi fighters and their supporters view the edict as an act of provocation. It may lead them to undertake foolish security acts aimed at aborting the edict’s purpose – in other words, acts that would damage the Kingdom’s image and consolidate the impression that it supports terrorism.
The Saudi regime can hide behind the pretext that it has never supported its citizens’ fighting outside the Kingdom’s borders, and has never allowed donations to be collected, or the incitement to pursue jihad abroad. This may seem convincing at the merely formal level. A number of preachers and mosque imams who have incited the youth to fight have been subject to interrogation so as to prevent them from collecting donations for the war in Syria. Moreover, fatwas have been issued deeming what is happening in Syria as nothing short of fitna [internal sedition banned by Islamic law].
On the other hand, the observer can amass a mountain of evidence proving the involvement of the Saudi political, media, and religious institutions in the emigration of thousands of Saudis to what the inciters refer to as ard al-rabat [the land of crucial confrontation] in Syria. Otherwise, how can we explain the participation of hundreds of Saudi military personnel in the fighting even though they cannot travel outside Saudi Arabia without explicit permission from their military command?
The mention of military personnel and the harsh punishment that awaits them is no mere coincidence. There are documented reports proving the involvement of a large number of Saudi military personnel in the fighting in Syria. They have poured into the country via Jordanian territory under the aegis of Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Sultan, the half-brother of the godfather of the war in Syria, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the head of Saudi intelligence.
The fact is that Saudi Arabia has proven adept at playing a double game. In public, it has displayed an artificially strict stance regarding participation by Saudis in fighting outside the country and the collection of donations for al-Qa’ida and its old and new branches. Covertly, however, money, men, and weapons have been flowing to the battlefields without any restraint or accountability.
- Message number three: The edict sends secondary signals that the war in Syria is nearing its end, and that the armed groups will have to take care of themselves, now that they have lost their necessary financial, armament, and training sponsorship. This necessarily means that Prince Bandar bin Sultan no longer has any role left to play after he has left to the U.S. on the pretext of receiving medical treatment in what is in effect an open-ended leave of absence.
We should take note here of the Iranian/Turkish proposal that could offer an appropriate way for Saudi Arabia out of the Syrian swamp, provided it gradually ends its support for the armed elements. It is clear that Iran and Turkey have begun to coordinate at the highest level with the aim of confronting the problem of terrorism – an issue that Ankara had previously been hesitant to approach in a serious manner according to the Iranians, but which it is now ready to address in the broadest terms after Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Tehran [this week].
In short, Saudi Arabia is wary of its citizens returning from the fighting in Syria. This is why it has decided to produce a list of harsh punishments in an attempt to avoid the potentially violent repercussions it may confront when the time arrives for settling accounts. But what is even more dangerous from the Saudi perspective is the international punishment that may await it if it refuses to pay the price for losing the war in Syria and its responsibility for the growth and spread of international terrorism. This has forced European intelligence agencies to intensify their presence in the region so as to monitor the return of their citizens who are fighting in Syria to their home countries.
We should also draw attention to other concessions Saudi Arabia has made so as to remove the spectre of the charge that it is sponsoring terrorism. During U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to Riyadh, he described the Saudi leadership’s attitude towards speeding up an Israeli/Palestinian settlement in noteworthy terms. He said that he sensed the leadership’s ‘great enthusiasm’ in this regard, at a time when there was nothing to justify such enthusiasm.
This is where the reports regarding the terrorism dossier that the Americans presented to their Saudi counterparts, and the dossier of a Palestinian/Israeli resolution begin to converge. Sources close to the PA in Ramallah say that Kerry asked PA President Mahmoud ‘Abbas to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Moreover, he asked the Palestinian side to abandon the right of return in return for working on a project for resettling the refugees on a wide scale, including in the Arab states as well as Australia and Canada. Palestinian sources add that President Mahmoud ‘Abbas was unwilling to give his consent unless he secures cover from the leading Arab states, primarily Saudi Arabia. Kerry then reassured ‘Abbas that he would assume that task himself. Is there any relation between Kerry’s assurances and King ‘Abdullah’s enthusiasm?
Overall, the royal edict suggests the beginning of a new phase in which certain parties will be at the receiving end!
