This week the Senate voted to cease and desist US military cooperation with allies Saudi Arabia and UAE in waging the war in Yemen, which according to the United Nations has created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history. The Wednesday vote was was 54 to 46, including seven Republicans voting with the Democrats.

The “war powers” legislation has been widely seen as a direct rebuke of Trump's foreign policy amid broader pushback over his defense of Saudi Arabia in the wake of last year's Jamal Khashoggi killing at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. The invocation of the War Powers Act of 1973 expressly prohibits US military action not previously approved by Congress.

A House vote is expected soon, which would require President Trump to immediately withdraw American military support from the Saudi-led coalition. Trump said in December he would veto the Senate resolution if it ever reached his desk, which now appears likely.

Months of battles in Congress to challenge the US war in Yemen under the War Powers Act is coming to a key moment, a vote in the Senate on Wednesday. The SJ Res 7 resolution is a clean version of the challenge, without any amendments yet attached.

Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen in March of 2015, seeking to reinstall former President Hadi and remove the Shi’ite Houthi movement. The US backed the Saudi invasion, and has participated military, both in refueling Saudi warplanes, and in a naval blockade of Yemen.

Legal challenges in 2018 were repeatedly stalled in the House of Representatives, where the leadership changed rules to prevent a War Powers Act challenge, which would point out that the war was never authorized by Congress. The Senate did ultimately pass such a challenge in late 2018, but without a House version, they both had to start anew with the 2019 Congress.

Children as young as eight have been raped in a besieged city in war-hit Yemen, Amnesty International said on Monday, with Saudi-backed militiamen among the suspected perpetrators.

Three boys were raped and a fourth was sexually assaulted in the southwestern city of Taiz, Amnesty said, noting it had documented evidence of the sexual attacks that took place in the city controlled by pro-government forces and surrounded by Yemeni rebels.

The families of the four boys, aged eight to 16, told Amnesty their sons had been assaulted over the past eight months, including at a mosque, but authorities in the area had not been responsive.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi strongly condemned the Saudi-led coalition for a recent attack that killed at least 21 Yemeni women and children, describing it as a “savage” attack.

In a statement released on Monday, Qassemi deplored the continued silence of international organizations and Western-backed human rights groups on the inhumane crimes of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

“The voice of innocent women and children of Yemen, who after years of suffering from famine and impacts of the human tragedy in the country are victimized each day in the most brutal manner possible with the weapons donated and sold by some Western countries to the invaders, is not heard as long as they are alive,” he said.

Most reports on international arms sales focus on the biggest sellers. That inevitably means the United States, the largest exporter by far in the growing market. You can’t have sales without buyers, however, and that side of the equation centers heavily on the Middle East.

Middle Eastern countries now buy more than a third of all global arms. The biggest customer not just in the Middle East but in the world, is Saudi Arabia,whose purchases have soared 192% over a five year period.

Iran has censured the latest Saudi airstrikes in Yemen's northwestern province of Hajjah, saying the so-called advocates of human rights are complicit in Riyadh's crimes as they sell arms to the regime.

"The so-called advocates of human rights not only remain silent in the face of daily killings of women and children in Yemen, but they are also complicit in these crimes by selling weapons to the aggressors," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Monday.

He criticized human rights organizations and circles for remaining tight-lipped in the face of inhumane war crimes committed by the aggressors against Yemen.

The Iranian spokesperson added that innocent defenseless Yemeni women and children, who have suffered from years of famine and the consequences of the human tragedy in the country, are falling victim in the most brutal manner to the arms donated and sold to the invaders by some Western countries, but their voice is not heard as long as they are alive.

It didn’t take long for Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s comments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had “gone full gangster” to make the news rounds all the way from the U.S. to the Middle East, across the globe and back again. The Republican senator made his controversial comments during Retired Gen. John Abizaid's nomination hearing Wednesday in Washington to be the Trump administration's first ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Despite increasing tensions between the two long-time allies, the U.S. has not had an ambassador to Saudi Arabia since Trump became president in January 2017. Abizaid is a retired four-star Army general who led U.S. Central Command during the Iraq war under the Bush and Obama administrations.

On March 7, the Houthis media wing released a short video of recent clashes between the Yemeni group and the Saudi-led coalition in the al-Dud mount in the southern part of the Kingdom’s southern province of Jizan.

The video shows Houthi fighters destroying several vehicles of the coalition with field artillery and recoilless rifles. Coalition personnel can be also seen fleeing some of their positions in the area.

In a second video released by the Houthis media wing, Houthi fighters destroyed a bulldozer of the Saudi-led coalition in southern Jizan with an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). The bulldozer was reportedly building fortifications in a key area on the Saudi-Yemeni border.

Erik Prince, former head of mercenary business Blackwater, revealed in a bombshell interview Friday that he attended a meeting in Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. and a representative of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss “Iran policy” during the presidential campaign.

The interview marked the first time Prince has publicly acknowledged such a meeting. Prince said in congressional testimony in 2017 that he had no “official” or “unofficial” role in the campaign — other than a “yard sign” and writing “papers” — according to the transcript of his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Nor did he mention the meeting in his testimony, according to transcripts.

Earlier, US House Democrats asked Attorney General William Barr to open a criminal case against Trump's son-in-law amid media reports that the president had ordered White House officials to give him top secret security clearance despite his unreported contacts with over 100 foreign individuals.

Senior White House advisor Jared Kushner is facing heat from officials in Congress and staff from the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia amid reports that he'd held secret, closed door conversations with Saudi officials including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman late last month.

Embassy staffers were not briefed on or given details about Kushner's February trip, nor the meetings he'd held with members of the Saudi Royal Family, with only one senior State Department official, whose portfolio is focused on Iran, in attendance during the meetings, sources with knowledge of the trip told The Daily Beast.

That Khashoggi then chose to write for the Washington Post — an avid opponent of Trump — was a particular concern. What bombshell was he going to drop next in his column?

The Saudis knew, says Wilson, that the once highly-placed Khashoggi had an insight into the kingdom’s long-held desire to develop a nuclear capability, as a counterweight to the nuclear bomb ambitions of Iran, its number one enemy.

He might also have been aware of Trump’s keenness to sell nuclear technology to them. Such knowledge, he suggests, made Khashoggi a liability to the Saudis ‘that could only be cancelled by eliminating him’.

Senior US Congressmen have called for the Saudi Arabian authorities to release dual citizen Walid Fitaihi, who has been detained and tortured in Saudi prisons.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, lead Republican Michael McCaul and Chairman Eliot Engel said that Fitaihi must be released. “We are deeply concerned by reports that Dr Walid Fitaihi, a dual US-Saudi citizen in Saudi custody, has been tortured,” the statement read.

They added: “Allegations like this are stunning and the reported lack of due process [in Saudi Arabia] is completely unacceptable. Torture and coercion of all prisoners must end.”

Concluding their statement, the Congressmen said: “We call on Saudi Arabia to immediately release Dr Fitaihi and allow him to travel outside Saudi Arabia.”

A Beverly Hills-based talent agency, Endeavor, has returned a $400m investment fund to Saudi Arabia and cancelled its contract with the kingdom over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the New York Times reported.

The fund was given to the firm's chief Ariel Emanuel during a high-profile Hollywood party last spring, which brought together Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), Disney chief executive Robert Iger and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others.

The money was meant to fund the growth of Endeavor and diversify the kingdom's economy through the agency's work in various industries, including sports and film production.

But following the murder of Khashoggi, the firm returned the fund, protesting the murder, and effectively ending its relationship with Saudi Arabia, according to two NYT sources with knowledge of the deal.

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Scott Gottlieb said on Tuesday he plans to step down in a month, calling into question how the agency would handle critical issues such as e-cigarette use among teens and efforts to increase competition for prescription drugs.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, announced Gottlieb's resignation on Tuesday.

Gottlieb was well regarded and won bipartisan support for his efforts to curb the use of flavoured e-cigarettes among young people in the United States, speed approval times for cheap generic medicines to increase competition and bring down prescription drug prices and boost the use of cheaper versions of expensive biotech medicines, called biosimilars.

A new bipartisan effort in the US Senate is the latest attempt to pass a bill that would end Washington's support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Kevin Zeese, co-coordinator for Popular Resistance, tells Sputnik that it would be "fantastic" to see such a bill pass ? but also to beware of loopholes.

"We've seen Yemen bills pass in the Senate, we've seen Yemen bills pass in the House [of Representatives], but never together. Maybe we'll finally have one pass together, which would be fantastic to see that occur," Zeese told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Wednesday.

"The Yemen war needs to end; it's a disaster. The US should have never gotten involved, and Saudi Arabia needs to be held accountable for the crimes it's commiting in Yemen every day," he stressed.

Retired General John Abizaid, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Saudi Arabia, defended the U.S.-Saudi relationship on Wednesday as lawmakers accused the kingdom of a litany of misdeeds and criticized its crown prince as going “full gangster.”

Senators at Abizaid’s confirmation hearing including Trump’s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats condemned the kingdom’s conduct in the civil war in Yemen, heavy-handed diplomacy and rights abuses. Among those were the torturing of women’s activists and a U.S. citizen and the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Abizaid called for accountability for the murder of Khashoggi, a U.S. resident, and support for human rights, but repeatedly stressed the strategic importance of Washington-Riyadh ties.

There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen.

The unease is said to have been building since the murder in Turkey of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA has reportedly concluded was ordered by Prince Mohammed. However, these tensions increased dramatically in late February when the king, 83, visited Egypt and was warned by his advisers he was at risk of a potential move against him, according to a detailed account from a source.

His entourage was so alarmed at the possible threat to his authority that a new security team, comprised of more than 30 hand-picked loyalists from the interior ministry, was flown to Egypt to replace the existing team.

In the Gulf they joke that Saudi-US relations are run by the crown prince and “the clown prince”. The first, Mohammed bin Salman, is Saudi Arabia’s strongman. The second, Jared Kushner, is Donald Trump’s son-in-law. If it were not for their friendship, relations between the US and the House of Saud might be in serious crisis. But Mr Kushner has an Arab-Israeli peace plan up his sleeve.

In his view Saudi backing will be key to its success. Which means the Saudis can get away with nearly anything — alleged royal-instigated killing, for example — as long as they hold out the prospect of backing Mr Kushner. To say the least, Prince Mohammed has the better of the bargain. Few people give Mr Kushner’s peace plan ironically dubbed “deal of the century” much chance. The epithet “dead on arrival” has become standard even before the plan has arrived.

The US government said it has awarded arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin a $946m payment on behalf of Saudi Arabia for an advanced missile defence system.

The contract, announced by the Pentagon in a statement on Monday, is the first instalment of what is expected to be a $15bn deal.

In November, Saudi and US officials signed the letters of offer and acceptance formalising terms for the kingdom's purchase of 44 Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) launchers, missiles and related equipment.

As a part of the scope of work outlined by the Pentagon, obsolete systems currently in place will be updated to prepare the current Saudi missile defence infrastructure for the new THAAD technology.

The contract also allows Lockheed Martin to pay for materials, tooling and engineering development, among other work.

Milan’s prestigious La Scala opera house is under fire over negotiations to add none other than Saudi Arabia’s culture minister as a new board member, in a plan that was slammed as being financially motivated and “unscrupulous.”

The prospect of a member of the Saudi royal family sitting on the board of directors of one of Italy's top theaters has caused such a stir that it was brought up in parliament, with Maurizio Gasparri, a member of the Forza Italia party saying that it could tarnish the opera house’s image. “Our government also has the duty of defending the history and identity of La Scala,” he said. Gasparri also asked Italy’s Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli to clarify the “assessment of the government” on the issue.

An American citizen was allegedly tortured while in custody in Saudi Arabia, according to a report by the New York Times.

Walid Fitaihi described being dragged from his room in Riyadh's Ritz Carlton hotel, where he was being detained, then told a friend he was "blindfolded, stripped of his underwear and bound to a chair," the report said.

The Harvard-trained doctor was then reportedly shocked with electricity in "what appears to have been a single session of torture that lasted about an hour", the daily reported.

It also said he was whipped so severely, he could not sleep on his back for days.

Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports to US are falling sharply, with shipments so far this month at just 1.6 million barrels, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, versus 5.75 million barrels a year ago.

For the whole of January, Saudi Arabia exported just 2.69 million barrels of crude to the United States. The decline follows Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut its crude oil production — primarily heavy crude grades — by more than it agreed to at the December OPEC+ meeting as it seeks higher oil prices.

Saudi Arabian lobbying and threats seem to have succeeded in dissuading the European Union from including the kingdom on the bloc's money-laundering blacklist.

The inclusion of Saudi Arabia is likely to be blocked in the coming weeks following pressure and lobbying from Riyadh, which threatened to cut ties with EU member states in case it is blacklisted under the motion, EU sources told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman sent letters to all EU leaders urging them to reconsider the inclusion of Riyadh on the list, one of the letters seen by Reuters showed.

Saudi analyst Abdul Hamid al-Hakeem has defended the appearance of Saudi and Arab leaders alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a recent conference in Warsaw, asserting that Saudi normalisation of ties with Israel was no cause for embarrassment. The two-day US-organised Warsaw conference on “peace and security” in the Middle East was widely seen as another major step by certain Arab and Israeli leaders to achieve a normalisation of ties. Al-Hakeem, the former director of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, suggested that by achieving peace with Israel, a new Middle East would be created free of the ‘Iranian threat’.

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation.

Authored by Tim Daiss via Oilprice.com,

Last year, President Donald Trump successfully convinced Saudi Arabia to help keep a lid on global oil prices by ramping up production. The Saudis acquiescence to Trump’s tweets at the time were likely appeasement to the president for placing fresh sanctions against Saudi Arabia’s middle eastern nemesis, Iran. Moreover, most concede that Riyadh was a deciding factor in swaying the president to withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran. Consequently, Saudi Arabia’s kowtow to Trumps’ tweets was a returned favor.

However, when Trump later granted waivers that allowed several countries to keep importing Iranian crude, oil prices started their nosedive during the last quarter of the year, catching Saudi Arabia flat-footed, and according to many accounts furious at the president for what they saw as a betrayal of trust.

US President Donald Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince to discuss “building up” cooperation while the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was apparently not even mentioned.

Accompanied by the US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and US special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, Kushner met with King Salman – all as part of his trip to the Gulf nations in support for a yet-to-be-unveiled Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced last week it would be probing Trump administration allies and their push to have the U.S. government share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia. The committee’s report explained how an organization called IP3 International developed a plan for U.S. companies to build nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia dubbed the “Middle East Marshall Plan.”

The report alleges Michael Flynn, while he was national security advisor to Trump’s presidential campaign and transition, and Thomas Barrack, chairman of the Trump Inaugural Committee and friend to the president, were proponents of the IP3 plan since at least the summer of 2015 and into the time Flynn was a White House advisor. Whistleblowers to the House committee were concerned that the plans, and administration officials’ links to them, would violate U.S. law.

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation.

audi King Salman bin Abdelaziz stressed on the importance of reaching a political solution for the political crisis in Yemen, condemning the Iranian support for the Houthi rebel movement and interfering in the Arab region’s affairs.

During his speech in the opening of the EU-Arab league Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Salman said: “The kingdom [Saudi Arabia] stresses the importance of reaching a political solution for the Yemeni crisis, based on the Gulf initiative and the outcomes of the Yemeni national dialogue, as well as the resolution 2216 of the UN Security Council.”

It is important to exert more international efforts for supporting “legitimacy” in Yemen and forcing the “terrorist Houthi militia” which is supported by Iran, to follow the international community’s will.

Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, was key in facilitating covert relations between Gulf states and Israel in the early 2000s.

Secret ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia accelerated in 2003, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked longtime Mossad chief Meir Dagan to reexamine relations with neighboring Gulf states, according to a report by Barak Ravid for Israel’s Channel 10.

“The prime minister made it clear to Dagan that it is appropriate to try to use, as they say, the change in the political climate,” according to Dov Weisglass, a former senior adviser to Sharon who was present during the meeting.

“This was the opening shot of the Mossad’s extensive secret diplomatic activity vis-à-vis the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia,” Ravid reported.

The United States is rushing to give Saudi sensitive nuclear technology because President Donald Trump does not want to lose the “biggest financial contributors” to his campaign, says a political analyst.

James Petras made the remarks in an interview with Press TV about a congressional report that shows the United States is rushing to transfer “highly sensitive nuclear technology” to Saudi Arabia, with Trump being “directly engaged” in the push.

The House of Representatives’ Oversight and Reform Committee released the 24-page report on Tuesday, listing the actions taken by the Trump administration in an attempt to win government support for American firms to construct nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia, in what could increase the risk of spreading nuclear weapons technology.

Mohammed bin Salman was greeted by Indian PM Narendra Modi at the airport in New Delhi. Before touching down in India, bin Salman visited Pakistan and held talks with officials in Islamabad. Analysts believe the trips are part of the crown prince’s charm offensive to repair his troubled image.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the “first phase” of the joint withdrawal of combat forces from Yemen’s Hodeidah is to begin Monday. The Shi’ite Houthis are expected to withdraw forces from the grain port at Saleef and the oil terminal at Ras Isa. Troops are expected to end up at least 5 km away.

This is part of the first phase announced last week. Details were not disclosed at the time, and it’s still unclear what, if any, drawdowns are expected of the Saudi-backed forces at this time, as part of this phase.

Houthi troops who retain control of the main aid port in Hodeidah are expected to withdraw as part of a second phase of the withdrawal from the province. As part of the same phase, the pro-Saudi forces are expected to withdraw from the Kilo 7 road, a vital aid route that they’ve cut off.

On Friday Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) met with Chinese President Xi Jingping hours after finalizing a $10 billion deal for Saudi Aramco to establish a refining and petrochemical complex in China. It was the culmination of the crown prince's two day visit to China, and the last stop in a three country tour geared toward expanding the kingdom's trade ties in the East, and as both Beijing and Riyadh face mounting pressure from the United States.

A Saudi investor, who has already ploughed millions into a prominent British online newspaper, has bought a £25m stake in the company which owns the Evening Standard, the Financial Times has reported.

Sultan Mohamed Abuljadayel reportedly bought a 30 percent stake in Lebedev Holdings, the parent company, headed by Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev, which owns the free newspaper distributed in London and edited by former UK chancellor George Osborne.

According to the Financial Times, Abuljadayel made his purchase using a Cayman Islands company to hide his identity and bought a stake more than a third larger than company filings disclosed in December with a final portion agreed last week.

In 2017, Middle East Eye broke the news that Abuljadayel had bought as much as a 50 percent stake in the Independent, a news organisation bought by Lebedev’s father, Alexander, who is a former KGB officer.

With neither its farmers nor fishermen safe from Saudi coalition attacks, famine has become a massive crisis in Yemen, further exacerbated by the coalition’s blockade of the country which largely prevents food from being imported into the troubled nation.

Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’’s crown prince, on Friday defended China’s use of concentration camps for Muslims, saying it was Beijing’s “right”.

"China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremisation work for its national security,” Prince Mohammed, who has been in China signing multi-million trade deals much to the annoyance of his Western allies, was quoted as saying on Chinese state television.

Xi Jinping, China’s leader, told the crown prince the two countries must strengthen international cooperation on de-radicalisation to “prevent the infiltration and spread of extremist thinking”.

The US House Judiciary Committee passed a bill on Thursday that would allow the Justice Department to sue members of OPEC for manipulating the oil market.

According to Max Keiser, “this little alliance [between OPEC and the US – Ed.] has been going strong since the 1970s,” as the quid pro quo was that the US would buy Saudi oil and the Saudis would buy US debt.

“Of course, the energy industry is capital intensive, and all of the banks and energy companies in America generate a lot of debt and they needed some place to park it. And they parked it in the Saudi empire and returned for the oil.”

Germany is feeling the pressure from western allies over its weapons exports freeze in the wake of the Saudi killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a freeze first announced in November, which included plans to reject any future export licences to Riyadh, but not previously approved deals.

German allies like the UK have lately implored the German government to soften its stance, noting the potential broader economic impact on Europe. British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, currently in Berlin to discuss the terms of Brexit, reportedly wrote to the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, in a private letter first revealed by Der Spiegel that UK defense companies would be hindered in contractual obligations related to Eurofighter Typhoon and the Tornado fighter jet delivery, namely to supply parts affected by the German arms freeze.

The House Oversight committee now chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings issued an interim staff report after several whistleblowers came forward "to warn about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of the Atomic Energy Act," spearheaded by Jared Kushner, according to a press release by the House Oversight Committee.

The press release is in conjunction with the announcement of an investigation into the allegations.

The plan, which reportedly involved former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Kushner and Trump fundraiser Thomas Barrack, would see the development of "dozens of nuclear power plants" in a "Middle East Marshall Plan" through IP3 - a private US company which has "assembled a consortium of US companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia."

Supporters of a measure to cut off U.S. support to Saudi Arabia in Yemen are projecting victory in the coming weeks when the Senate takes up a House-passed resolution.

The Trump administration is expected to ramp up its lobbying against the Yemen war powers resolution as the vote nears in hopes of flipping some of the Republicans who back the measure.

But opponents have few tools at their disposal to stop the resolution, which only needs a simple majority for a procedural vote and subsequent final passage.

Backers say they now have added momentum as the administration’s missteps in handling the Jamal Khashoggi killing have only increased ire at Saudi Arabia.

“I think we’re going to win,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.

He declined to say whether he expects any Republicans who supported the measure in December to switch their vote.

Jamal Khashoggi was working to promote reconciliation between the Saudi and Iranian people prior to his murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October, Middle East Eye can reveal.

In an unfinished opinion article drafted early in 2018 by the exiled Saudi journalist in collaboration with a leading Iranian human rights activist, Khashoggi called for civil society organisations in both countries to be “voices of reason and moderation” even as their governments risked open conflict.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) just inked billions in deals to secure new weapons from top Pentagon contractor Raytheon a week after an Amnesty International investigation further implicated the Gulf nation in war crimes for transferring Western weapons to unaccountable militia groups, thereby deepening the humanitarian crisis and fueling carnage in war-ravaged Yemen.

"Emirati forces receive billions of dollars' worth of arms from Western states and others, only to siphon them off to militias in Yemen that answer to no-one and are known to be committing war crimes."

Originally published at WhoWhatWhy.org

In August 2018, Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian ambassador in Riyadh, halted direct flights to Toronto, suspended new trade deals, and threatened to relocate thousands of Saudis studying in Canada.

The diplomatic fallout was all because Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted her concern for a Saudi activist, Samar Badawi, who was arrested for her human rights advocacy in the Kingdom.

Very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi.

— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) August 2, 2018
The social media post, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in response, was an “overt and blatant interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom” and violated “the most basic international norms.”

More than 2,000 Pakistani workers languishing in Saudi jails will be released, Pakistan's information minister announced on Monday during Saudi Arabian crown prince's high-profile visit to Islamabad.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had "ordered the immediate release of 2,107 Pakistani prisoners", after a request by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Fawad Chaudhry said in a post on Twitter.

Prince Mohammed arrived in Pakistan on Sunday at the beginning of an Asian tour which will include China and is seen as an attempt by him to rebuild his reputation after the murder of Saudi critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday signed investment agreements with Pakistan worth $20bn.

Saudi officials have yet to comment on the Pakistani announcement of a prisoner release.

The chief commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned Saudi Arabia and the UAE that they could face retaliatory measures for supporting terrorists on behalf of the US and Israel.

General Mohammad Ali Jafari on Saturday stressed that Iran would give a "decisive" response to a Wednesday terrorist attack which killed 27 IRGC border guards in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province.

"The patience that the establishment once exercised against conspiracies and reactionary regimes in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE which carry out these acts on orders from the US and the Zionist regime, will be different and we will definitely take reparative measures," he said.

On Wednesday, an explosives-laden car rammed into a bus carrying the IRGC personnel on a road between the cities of Zahedan and Khash, leaving 27 of them dead and 13 others wounded.

A starker reality is that the US has aided and abetted a criminal, genocidal war against Yemen, mostly carried out by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and several allies. From the beginning, this war has been a nexus of war crimes that included using cluster bombs on civilian targets, such as weddings, funerals, hospitals, and schools. The US was involved from the start in selecting those and other targets. The US provided intelligence, maintenance, mid-air refueling, and support for a naval blockade (an act of war) that helped starve a country that has always needed to import food to survive.

Saudi Arabia supported Israel in its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, an Israeli TV channel has claimed

In the third part of a series of reports entitled “Secrets of the Gulf,” Israeli news channel Channel 13 reported on the secret relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and quoted senior Israeli officials as saying that Tel Aviv had received letters from Riyadh urging it to strike Hezbollah with all its might.

However, the results of the war “caused great disappointment in Riyadh,” according to the channel correspondent, Barak Ravid.

The CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed, but the young ruler is there to stay, and so is the cosy US-Saudi relationship, a prominent CIA whistleblower told RT.

With enough information leaked from the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and the Turkish national intelligence organization, Kiriakou says there is little doubt among the analysts that it was Mohammed bin Salman (MBS for short) who had ordered the killing.

The CIA, for its part, concluded with “medium to high confidence” that Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October, and was never seen again, was tortured and murdered on orders coming from MBS.

US special envoy Jared Kushner confirmed Thursday that US President Donald Trump’s peace plan won’t be based on past international understanding such as the 2002 Saudi initiative, which the international community and the Palestinians have long touted as the basis of a two-state solution.

“I think it was a great initiative, in 2002 when it was done, but it hasn’t produced peace, so if that was the framework under which something would be accomplished then I think that would have been accomplished a long time ago, and then I wouldn’t be doing the duty I’m doing right now to try to bring the people together,” Kushner reportedly said behind closed doors at the Warsaw summit. His words were leaked to the Israeli media.

According to a report by Barak Ravid for Israel’s Channel 10, the two leaders spoke by phone several times between 2015 and 2016, following years of covert relations between the two countries.

This includes intelligence collaboration against Iran, arms sales and technology exchanges.

Ravid traces the history of the collaboration back a decade, when the failure of a secret arms deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates led to a two-year rift in covert relations.

In February 2009, Israel lobby stalwart and former US “peace process” diplomat Dennis Ross, UAE ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba and Israeli ambassador Sallai Meridor met in secret at a Washington hotel, Ravid reported.

These heartwrenching images of a 12-year-old starving girl, so weak she has to be carried by her sister, shows just one of millions of victims of Yemen's civil war.

Fatima Qoba weighs just 22lbs - no more than an average toddler - and years of starvation has left her with paper-thin skin stretched over her bones.

She is receiving treatment at a malnutrition clinic in Hajjah, northwest Yemen, after her desperate sibling brought her there, fearing she would die.

The Trump administration threatened on Monday to veto an effort in the U.S. Congress to end U.S. military support for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in the war in Yemen, continuing a stand-off with lawmakers over policy toward the kingdom.

Democrats and Republicans re-introduced the war powers resolution two weeks ago as a way to send a strong message to Riyadh both about the humanitarian disaster in Yemen and condemn the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Hundreds of Saudi police officers were trained in Britain last year, despite claims the skills they acquire could help the regime commit torture, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

The College of Policing, which sets the standards for UK police forces, has increased its work with a desert kingdom that faces global condemnation for alleged state-sponsored brutality.

The Telegraph investigation has found 268 Saudi police officers attended British training sessions between January and October last year. The figure dwarfs the number sent by other countries at the same time and comes as the regime faces accusations it arrested and tortured children, including some who were sentenced to death, according to a human rights charity.

A new bipartisan resolution making its way through the Senate is aimed at blocking Saudi Arabia from having any path toward the creation of nuclear weapons, placing severe restrictions on Saudi activities if they accept a US civilian nuclear cooperation deal.

If the Saudis accept US nuclear cooperation, the resolution would forbid them from any uranium enrichment, and from any attempted reprocessing of plutonium produced in their reactors. These are the two primary ways nuclear arms could be produced.

The Trump Administration is reportedly in the process of making exactly such a cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia, with Energy Secretary Rick Perry in quiet talks on sharing US civilian nuclear technology with them.

Congressional anger at the Saudis for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has fueled a lot of resolutions on US-Saudi relations, trying to place additional limits on Saudi access to US technology, to prevent abuses in the future.

Saudi Arabian authorities have transferred detained human rights activist Nasima Al-Sada to solitary confinement.

Writing on Twitter, Prisoners of Conscience – which reports on political prisoners in Saudi Arabia – explained that Al-Sada has been detained since August 2018 for defending human and women rights in the kingdom. She has since been subjected to a smear campaign by Saudi media outlets, which accuse her of “espionage”.

Al-Sada is co-founder of the Centre for Justice for Human Rights, which did not succeed in obtaining a permit to work in Saudi Arabia. She has also campaigned to allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia and was summoned for questioning several times because of her work.

In 2015, along with fellow human rights activist Lojain Al-Hathloul – who is also detained by the Saudi authorities – Al-Sada registered as a candidate in the first municipal elections in which women were allowed to run for office and vote. Both candidates were disqualified.

The thought of fighting in one of the various factions battling in Yemen’s brutal civil war never crossed Adel’s mind.

Until he lost his job in the public water service of Taiz city, that is.

Suddenly the father of two daughters found himself struggling to feed his family, and from 2015 he found providing for his wife and children a daily difficulty.

Last year, feeling at his lowest as unemployment and skyrocketing prices bit hard, the 37-year-old decided to become a mercenary, and fight for Saudi Arabia against Yemen’s Houthis along the two countries’ border.

“Dozens of my neighbours of different ages participated in battles before me and they returned with a lot of money, so I started to think about fighting,” Adel told Middle East Eye.

“My neighbours told me that they do not face any danger in the battles, and the air strikes usually target the Houthis while they shot at the Houthis from safe areas.”

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked whether the fact that his foundation receives Saudi funding impacts his opinions.

He also said in an interview with Sky News that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State group shared similar ideologies.

Apple and Google are facing criticism for hosting a Saudi Arabian smartphone app on their platforms which allows men to track women’s movements and “stop them leaving the country.”

According to Insider, the app, named Absher — which is available on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store — is “a government web service which allows men to specify when and how women can cross Saudi borders, and to get close to real-time SMS updates when they travel.”

The ex-Saudi Intelligence Chief Turki Al-Faisal this weekend revealed that secret relations between Israel and a number of Gulf states date back as far as 25 years.

According to Qatari newspaper Al-Arab, Al-Faisal was interviewed by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, who claims to have conducted interviews with 20 prominent Gulf officials with knowledge of secret relations with Israel. However, many of these people refused to speak to the camera, Israel’s Channel 13 reported.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen launched a targeting operation in the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, Saudi state TV reported on Saturday.

The operation targeted a location for storing and preparing drones and launch vehicles in Sanaa.

The coalition added that the operation conformed to international law and that measures were taken to protect civilians.

Saudi Arabia appears to have been systematically helping its US-based citizens to evade American justice for serious crimes, possibly by providing fake passports and private planes.

Late last year, the Oregonian reported five cases of suspects successfully fleeing charges in the state of Oregon, which was temporarily home to about 1,000 students from Saudi Arabia. But the same news outlet has now discovered a total of 17 cases across eight states and even Canada, suggesting the ploy is an established practice.

Most of the cases involve a similar scenario: after an arrest, the Saudi consulate hires a legal team and eventually posts bail, which in two cases constituted $1 million and $500,000. Once the suspect is released, even if they had surrendered their international travel passport, they somehow manage to leave the country, before then appearing back in Saudi Arabia.

Bolstering the already overwhelming case for cutting off U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's years-long assault on Yemen, a "bombshell" CNN investigation published late Monday found that the Saudis have sold or freely "passed on" American weapons to al-Qaeda fighters and other militia groups that have helped create the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

According to CNN, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have for years been transferring "American-made weapons to al-Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen... as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape."

The Saudi-led coalition provided US-made weapons to al-Qaeda-linked fighters, Salafi militias and other factions taking part in the intervention in Yemen, in violation with their agreements with the US, according to a CNN investigation.

The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones,” CNN reported.

According to the investigation, Saudi Arabia and the UAE used the US-made weapons to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape.

However, by handing off the military equipment to third parties, the Saudi-led coalition is in breach of its agreements with the US, according to the US Department of Defense.

Pakistan is making important strides in its military and naval capacities with the help of China, relying less on US-made weaponry. Despite accepting money from all sides, Pakistan’s relationship with China continues to be strong.
After the Trump administration decided to suspend $3 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, complaining that Islamabad fails to do enough to combat terrorism, Washington has risked pushing Pakistan into the open arms of a number of other notable nations.

China-Pakistan relationship continues to strengthen
China has been a key ally for Pakistan in recent times and is almost certainly the reason why the US has taken a sharp turn in its approach to dealing with the country. (Considering that the Bush administration was caught red-handed funding Pakistani terrorist groups, Washington’s recent disdain for Islamabad makes little sense in the context of wider US imperialism).

A total of about $107 billion has been recovered as a result of the detention of scores of Saudi royals and businessmen in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in 2017, according to the kingdom’s anti-corruption commission.

It said the assets collected from the 87 detainees came in a mix of cash, real estate, companies, and securities. The commission, which was headed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), referred more than 60 people to prosecution, saying that 56 of them had “other criminal cases against them.” Eight other people “refused to settle despite the existence of evidence against them, and they were referred to the public prosecutor.”

MBS, who called the anti-corruption campaign a “shock therapy,” has declared it a lucrative success. He told Bloomberg earlier that $35 billion had been collected from the prisoners.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday accused Western countries of covering up for the killers of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in return for arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

Speaking at a municipal gathering in Istanbul, Cavusoglu said the Saudi authorities had to admit to the murder because of the transparent policies followed by Turkey.

“But where is the body? This person was killed but his body cannot be found? What did they do with it? The Saudi attorney-general spoke of a local collaborator; who is the local collaborator?” Cavusoglu said.

“If you have a local collaborator, what is his name?” he added, noting that the Saudi attorney-general had said that the Saudi authorities will send a portrait of what the collaborator is suspected of looking like to Turkey.

Yemen's warring factions began preparations for a fresh escalation of fighting raging over the control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, ignoring efforts aimed at cessation of hostilities.

The calls for an escalation in fighting between the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Yemeni government forces added angers to the agreement reached under the auspices of the United Nations in Sweden in December last year.

Senior leaders of the Houthi group based in Sanaa vowed to intensify military battles against the Saudi-led coalition and its local allies just in case the implementation of Sweden agreement failed.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi highest revolutionary committee, said in a statement posted in Twitter that capturing the strategic port city of Hodeidah will not be easy for the Saudi-backed government forces.

The Washington Post broke the story [1] on Wednesday, January 23, that satellite images suggested Saudi Arabia had constructed its first-known ballistic missile factory. Paul Sonne, reporting for The Washington Post, notes: “If operational, the suspected factory at a missile base in al-Watah, southwest of Riyadh, would allow Saudi Arabia to manufacture its own ballistic missiles.”

The report adds:

“The ballistic missile manufacturing complex — which satellite images suggest broke ground in 2013 when King Salman was defense minister — highlights the nation’s intention to make its own advanced missiles after years of seeking to purchase them abroad.”

The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found.

Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded.

Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as “a new low.”

The United Nations Human Rights Office announced yesterday it is beginning an investigation into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In a statement, the UN said that an independent panel would seek to establish “the nature and extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”.

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, said she would travel to Turkey next week to head an “independent international inquiry” into Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.

British barrister Helena Kennedy and Duarte Nuno Vieira, a pathology expert and professor at the department of legal and forensic medicine at Coimbra University, Portugal, are among the team. Along with Callamard, they are to visit Turkey between 28 January and 3 February and plan to report to the UN Human Rights Council in June.

Callamard said that the findings will be raised at the UN rights office on 19 June.

Berlin might face a lawsuit from one of Germany’s largest defense contractors, Rheinmetall, over its decision to halt all arms deals with Riyadh in the wake of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Der Spiegel reports.

Rheinmetall AG might file a claim for compensation against the federal government worth millions of euro, the company said in a letter to the Ministry of Economics, the German weekly says. The defense industry giant considers itself eligible for restitution as Berlin suspended exports, which were already approved by the German security council, “for political reasons.”

On Wednesday, Yahoo News revealed new documents from late 2017 that show, contrary to the Defense Department’s insistence that it is neutral in the bloody conflict in Yemen perpetrated by a coalition of Saudi Arabia and its allies, the U.S. appears to have provided training to forces from the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the coalition:

The United States is “not a participant in the civil war in Yemen nor are we supporting one side or the other,” Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last month, echoing a long-held position in the Pentagon.

The propaganda war between rivals in the Middle East is set to become more heated with Saudi Arabia, which owns the largest video streaming service in the region, deciding to expand its media assets to challenge Netflix.

With 140 million viewers every day across the Middle East, the Dubai based Saudi controlled MBC Group has revealed plans to launch a series of initiatives that will see an increase in productions; global content acquisitions; product and technology investments; and partnerships with leading eco-system participants.

The initiative is seen to be part of Riyadh’s efforts to wage fierce propaganda wars against rivals Iran and Qatar. MBC is hoping that its pre-eminence in Arabic TV entertainment will help it catch up with Netflix and fend off other on-demand streaming services, such as Starz Play, Wavo and Amazon.

The UN is examining the asylum appeal of a young Saudi woman who fled her family and is afraid of getting killed if sent home. She earlier barricaded herself in a Thai hotel room, refusing to leave until the UN intervened.
It will take the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) “several days” to determine whether Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, needs international protection, the organization’s representative in Thailand said. The woman earlier claimed asylum, fearing that she will be killed if expelled to her home country. UNHCR staff is expected to continue interviewing her on Tuesday.

Netflix's decision to take down an episode of Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act show sets a bad precedent.

Netflix's decision to comply with the request from Saudi Arabia to block the second episode of the original series Patriot Act, a news commentary show by comic Hasan Minhaj, is concerning both because of the precedent it sets and the signal it sends to autocrats around the world.

By enabling censorship in Saudi Arabia just months after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman allegedly ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the company is restricting an important avenue of information on an issue of great importance in one of the most censored countries in the world. It is also signalling to other repressive states that it will comply with censorship requests and vague cybercrime laws that do not comply with international norms.

On December 13, the United States Senate made history with a vote invoking the 1973 War Powers Act to stop America’s military participation in, and support of, the unauthorized and immoral war against the desperate people in Yemen.

Never before had a vote of this nature passed the Senate. The measure passed with 56 senators voting in support and 41 voting against. It marked the first time the Senate has been able to put the breaks on our involvement in Yemen, a war that was never authorized by Congress, as is required by our Constitution.

Meanwhile, Speaker Paul Ryan went to extraordinary lengths to forestall a vote on a similar motion in the House of Representatives.

The history here is worth noting.

Taliban officials said yesterday that the movement will not attend planned peace talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia this month and wants them moved to Qatar.

The next round of talks between the Taliban and the US are the fourth in a series aimed at ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan. The talks will address the withdrawal of foreign troops and a possible ceasefire in 2019.

The movement’s leaders have rejected an offer from the Afghan government for direct talks despite mounting international pressure to involve the Western-backed government in the discussions.

“We are supposed to meet US officials in Riyadh next week and resume the unfinished peace process held in Abu Dhabi last month,” a senior Taliban member told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“The problem is that Saudi Arabia and the UAE wanted us to meet with the Afghan government delegation, which we cannot do for the time being, and therefore we canceled the meeting in Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Al-Qst also pointed out that the former adviser to the Saudi Royal Court, Saud Al-Qahtani, was seen more than once in the torture chambers, where he threatened one of the detainees saying: “I will do whatever I desire with you and then I will decompose your body and flush it down the toilet.” Al-Qahtani was sanctioned by the US in October for his alleged role in the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose body was allegedly disintegrated and disposed of.

Saudi Arabia is facing mounting opposition in areas it occupies in Yemen, leading US daily the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Many view Saudi presence and its alleged development projects as a pretext for the kingdom to entrench its control in the country by controlling Yemen's highly vulnerable infrastructure, the paper said.

“We are under Saudi occupation. We don’t need the Saudis,” it quoted former deputy governor of al-Mahra Ali bin Salem al-Huraizy, who has helped organize protests against the Saudi presence in the past.

Saudi Arabia has taken control over the province's seaports and airports, using them to deploy hundreds of troops in the region.

“There are illegitimate troops in these areas. Are there forces that belong to the Houthis to be fought by the coalition here? The answer is a big ‘no’,” al-Mahra and Socotra People’s General Council member Abdullah bin Issa al-Aafra said.

Buthaina Mansoor al-Rimi is an eight-year-old Yemeni girl who lost her entire family in a Saudi airstrike in 2017. Buthaina’s tragic story and a picture of her trying to force open one of her eyes at hospital made her a symbol of Yemen’s plight caused by years of war and bloodshed. She’s now demanding peace to save Yemeni children.

When the new Congress convenes Jan. 3, it is expected to pass a House resolution upholding congressional war powers and ending all direct U.S. involvement in the Saudi coalition’s war in Yemen. But hopes remain high that H. Con. Res. 138 will help to end the Yemen war itself. Congressional strategists and activists who have been working on the issue believe passage of the war powers measure will force Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the negotiating table.

Proponents of the war powers resolution, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, argue the Saudis will not be able to continue the war without the political-diplomatic support of the United States, and the Yemen resolution will make dramatically clear the Saudis can no longer count on U.S. support.