Saudi Arabia boosts security along its northern border with Iraq
Written by : Mohamed Abdel Fattah
Jul 16, 2014
Saudi Arabia is deploying men and high-tech machinery to boost security along its northern border with Iraq, it shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq, where it faces security threats .
Saudi Arabia has ramped up security to prevent attacks from Sunni Islamist militants, who have already seized large swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq, and from Shiite militias who are aligned with Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
Last month King Abdullah pledged to take “all measures” to protect Saudi Arabia, both from ISIS, which Saudi Arabia has labeled a terrorist organization, and also from Shiite militia in Iraq who have mobilized to fight the insurgents.
The National Guard and the Ministry of Defense sent an extra 1,000 men each, while border patrols have been increased and helicopters deployed to the area, General Faleh Al Subaie, commander of the Saudi Border Guard in the north, said in the city of Arar.
The Sunni militants have captured advanced weapons, tanks and Humvees from the Iraq military that have made their way into Syria, and that fighters are crossing freely from one side to the other have alarmed the Syrian government
ISIS militants are fighting the governments on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border, and an apparent decision by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to intervene to help Maliki further tangles the already complex knot of actors in the overlapping crises.
Sunni jihadists group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) declared a new caliphate and an Islamic state to claim dominion over Muslims across the globe .
ISIS have declared the captured territories from Iraq's Diyala province to Syria's Aleppo a new Islamic State - a ‘caliphate and declared its chief, Abu Bakr [Unlink] [Unlink] al-Baghdadi, as "the caliph" of the new state and "leader for Muslims everywhere,"
Islamic extremists have long aspired to recreate the Islamic caliphate that ruled over the Middle East for hundreds of years.
Saudi Arabia - Iraq ties
Saudi Arabia has Sunni-Muslim majority and one of several countries bordering Iraq, where the Shiite-led government of Nouri al-Maliki is facing a growing Sunni insurgency spurred by what critics of the Iraqi leader say are his sectarian policies.
Saudi officials have said the "sectarian" policies of Baghdad's Shiite-led government are to blame for the takeover by Sunni insurgents of key cities and large swathes of the country.
The relation between Saudi Arabia and Iraq have been strained since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.There’s no Saudi embassy in Baghdad, and little commercial contact between the two countries.
The Saudi government spent $3.4 billion to build the northern border security system, the Jeddah-based Arab News reported last month, without saying where it got the information.
Baghdad, has accuses Riyadh of supporting ISIS fighters who pride themselves in killing Shiite civilians.
Riyadh strongly denies it has helped ISIS, and its state media and sheikhs preach against the group, but it has openly supported other Sunni militant groups fighting in Syria, and hundreds of Saudi nationals are believed to have joined ISIS.
last week, three rockets were fired from Iraq at a Saudi border guards' housing complex. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the rocket fire.
Sources
Reuters
dailystar
thenational
Jul 16, 2014
Saudi Arabia is deploying men and high-tech machinery to boost security along its northern border with Iraq, it shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq, where it faces security threats .
Saudi Arabia has ramped up security to prevent attacks from Sunni Islamist militants, who have already seized large swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq, and from Shiite militias who are aligned with Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
Last month King Abdullah pledged to take “all measures” to protect Saudi Arabia, both from ISIS, which Saudi Arabia has labeled a terrorist organization, and also from Shiite militia in Iraq who have mobilized to fight the insurgents.
The National Guard and the Ministry of Defense sent an extra 1,000 men each, while border patrols have been increased and helicopters deployed to the area, General Faleh Al Subaie, commander of the Saudi Border Guard in the north, said in the city of Arar.
The Sunni militants have captured advanced weapons, tanks and Humvees from the Iraq military that have made their way into Syria, and that fighters are crossing freely from one side to the other have alarmed the Syrian government
ISIS militants are fighting the governments on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border, and an apparent decision by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to intervene to help Maliki further tangles the already complex knot of actors in the overlapping crises.
Sunni jihadists group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) declared a new caliphate and an Islamic state to claim dominion over Muslims across the globe .
ISIS have declared the captured territories from Iraq's Diyala province to Syria's Aleppo a new Islamic State - a ‘caliphate and declared its chief, Abu Bakr [Unlink] [Unlink] al-Baghdadi, as "the caliph" of the new state and "leader for Muslims everywhere,"
Islamic extremists have long aspired to recreate the Islamic caliphate that ruled over the Middle East for hundreds of years.
Saudi Arabia - Iraq ties
Saudi Arabia has Sunni-Muslim majority and one of several countries bordering Iraq, where the Shiite-led government of Nouri al-Maliki is facing a growing Sunni insurgency spurred by what critics of the Iraqi leader say are his sectarian policies.
Saudi officials have said the "sectarian" policies of Baghdad's Shiite-led government are to blame for the takeover by Sunni insurgents of key cities and large swathes of the country.
The relation between Saudi Arabia and Iraq have been strained since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.There’s no Saudi embassy in Baghdad, and little commercial contact between the two countries.
The Saudi government spent $3.4 billion to build the northern border security system, the Jeddah-based Arab News reported last month, without saying where it got the information.
Baghdad, has accuses Riyadh of supporting ISIS fighters who pride themselves in killing Shiite civilians.
Riyadh strongly denies it has helped ISIS, and its state media and sheikhs preach against the group, but it has openly supported other Sunni militant groups fighting in Syria, and hundreds of Saudi nationals are believed to have joined ISIS.
last week, three rockets were fired from Iraq at a Saudi border guards' housing complex. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the rocket fire.
Sources
Reuters
dailystar
thenational
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