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"State Department officials credit Prince Mohammed with developing a distinctive approach to combating terrorist recruiting in the kingdom, working directly with the families of dead militants. By providing support to the families “and telling them their sons had been ‘victims’ and not ‘criminals,’ ” the program gave the families “a way out” and provided a public relations advantage to the government."
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"“It sets into motion some very strange family dynamics, none of which appear very good,” said Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute who studies Saudi Arabia."
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"“None of these people are ideological,” Professor Haykel said. “There is no commitment to anything beyond their interests.”"
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“If you stop five but create 50,” Prince Mohammed was quoted as saying, “that’s dumb.”
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister of Saudi Arabia, arrived at a meeting of security chiefs from across the Arab world in Marrakesh, Morocco, last March to deliver a call to arms: It was time, he declared, for a concerted effort to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood, according to two Arab officials briefed on the meeting.
Several were stunned at his audacity. Brotherhood-style Islamists are an accepted part of politics in much of the Arab world, including Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Morocco itself, to say nothing of their warm welcome in Qatar, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to anger the powerful Saudi prince.
But this toughness toward perceived enemies to his family’s dynasty is characteristic of Prince Mohammed, a central player in the often opaque leadership of the kingdom who was named last week as deputy crown prince, making him second in line to the throne. Analysts and diplomats who know him say Prince Mohammed embodies Saudi Arabia’s shift to a more assertive foreign policy, propping up allies and dismantling perceived foes. Inside the kingdom, he has been a driving force in defeating extremist networks and in stifling and punishing political dissent.
As world dignitaries including President Obama fly here this week to congratulate the new monarch, King Salman, it is Prince Mohammed’s appointment to deputy crown prince that has captured attention across the Middle East. Analysts and diplomats say his elevation is a harbinger of the Saudi leadership’s longer-term vision for their state and the region, but it also raises thorny questions about royal politics among the hundreds of princes who may feel passed over.
Prince Mohammed’s rise in prominence comes amid newly tense relations between Riyadh and Washington, and while his focus on counterterrorism is in line with the White House’s, it is uncertain that he would be any less hostile to the continuing negotiations between Washington and Iran over itsnuclear program, or to signals that the White House is no longer pushing for the ouster of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
At the same time, Prince Mohammed’s security-first approach to preserving stability and silencing political opposition has been criticized by human rights groups and has often been cited as a motivation by those who support radical Islamist groups.
As interior minister, Prince Mohammed oversees a range of internal security forces; protects vital oil infrastructure; and commands a domestic intelligence network that keeps him informed about the secrets of the kingdom. He has also played a critical security role in almost every sensitive Saudi international file as well, including dealing with Bahrain, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and thePalestinians.
Prince Mohammed works closely with American intelligence and has such close ties to the White House that he has met twice, in Washington and Riyadh, with Mr. Obama.
“He is the strongest prince,” said Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University who studies Saudi Arabia. “He is the most powerful guy in the system. He is the pivot.”
As a younger half brother of King Abdullah, who died last week, King Salman, 79, has been next in line for the throne for years. And like those two men, the new crown prince, Muqrin, 69, is also a son of Saudi Arabia’s founder.
But Prince Mohammed, 55, is the first of the founder’s grandsons to be named as an heir to the throne, and his coronation would make him the first of his generation to lead the kingdom.
Many took his appointment as an attempt to underscore the dynasty’s stability, laying out its rulers for decades to come.
“They have told the people of Saudi Arabia that everything is going to be stable for the next 30 years, so don’t worry about the transition,” said James B. Smith, a former United States ambassador to Riyadh. “And it is a strategic message to everyone else who wants to try to second-guess the whole transition idea.”
Prince Mohammed, moreover, has only daughters, so he is not perceived to have a personal interest in positioning specific heirs to succeed him. “It means he is a player for the system, who cares about the family as a whole more than he does about himself,” Professor Haykel said.
But unlike the older generation, made up of a few dozen men, Prince Mohammed’s cohort has an estimated 600 princes, and some analysts suggest that his selection could anger cousins or even uncles who were not chosen.
“It sets into motion some very strange family dynamics, none of which appear very good,” said Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute who studies Saudi Arabia.
While either of the next two kings could technically name someone else as a successor, many who know Prince Mohammed say he has stood out for his hard work and integrity. Whenever a security officer is killed in the kingdom, he is known to pay his respects to the family in person, said Mustafa Alani, a scholar at the Gulf Research Center. And when King Abdullah’s death was announced, Prince Mohammed was not in Riyadh jockeying for position; he was at a counterterrorism conference in London.
“He is the hardest-working person I have ever seen in any government, and I spent a lot of time with him,” said Mr. Smith, the former ambassador.
Unlike King Abdullah or King Salman, who studied at the court, Prince Mohammed was educated in the West and graduated from Lewis & Clark, a liberal arts college in Portland, Ore.
Because of his Western education, Prince Mohammed is believed to favor liberalization on matters like education and opportunities for women. But he has made few public statements on social issues, and experts say his security mind-set makes him unlikely to push for changes that might endanger his family’s legitimacy as the guardians of the kingdom’s ultraconservative version of Islam.
“None of these people are ideological,” Professor Haykel said. “There is no commitment to anything beyond their interests.”
Prince Mohammed is a second-generation security chief, the son of the former interior minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz. As deputy minister under his father, Prince Mohammed was credited with a leading role helping Saudi Arabia fend off Al Qaeda and other Islamist militants over the last decade.
Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks portray Prince Mohammed as personally motivated to fight militant Islam and in tight cooperation with the United States.
In one cable, he said it had been difficult to see that Saudis had played role in the Sept. 11 attacks and other incidents.
“Terrorists stole the most valuable things we have,” Prince Mohammed told Richard C. Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations, in 2008. “They took our faith and our children and used them to attack us.”
State Department officials credit Prince Mohammed with developing a distinctive approach to combating terrorist recruiting in the kingdom, working directly with the families of dead militants. By providing support to the families “and telling them their sons had been ‘victims’ and not ‘criminals,’ ” the program gave the families “a way out” and provided a public relations advantage to the government.
“If you stop five but create 50,” Prince Mohammed was quoted as saying, “that’s dumb.”
Prince Mohammed was also eager to cooperate with the United States. In 2009, he called their law enforcement and intelligence agencies “one team” and said he had asked the king for permission to maintain a special “security channel” to exchange information with Washington regardless of the ups and downs of bilateral relations. But that focus on security has included a broader crackdown on dissent.
Adam Coogle, who monitors Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Watch, said that while law enforcement under Prince Mohammed’s father had often been arbitrary, Prince Mohammed had professionalized and formalized it.
“The actual outcomes for people are worse,” Mr. Coogle said. “You did this or said that, so you are sentenced to 15 years.”
Among the laws used to stifle dissent are a so-called cybercrimes law and a terrorism law implemented last year that allows for the prosecution of acts that “undermine the security of the society” or “endanger its national unity.” The law gives the interior minister broad powers over detention and has been used to jail many nonviolent dissidents, Mr. Coogle said.
“He is the architect of the crackdown on and jailing of these activists with ludicrously harsh sentences,” Mr. Coogle said. “This is all on his watch.”
Still, after a recent attack on members of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority in its eastern province, Prince Mohammed flew to the funeral to pay his respects — an important gesture for a Saudi royal.
In 2009, Prince Mohammed was lightly wounded when a militant who came to his palace saying he wanted reform blew up a bomb hidden in a body cavity. Though some criticized Prince Mohammed for letting his guard down, Mr. Alani, of the Gulf Research Center, said that Prince Mohammed had told his guard not to search the man so as not to humiliate him.
“It showed that this man is not delegating things to his assistants,” Mr. Alani said.
Correction: January 27, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the given name and omitted the middle initial of a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He is James B. Smith, not Jeffrey.
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In an exclusive interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, President Barack Obama defended the need for the U.S. to maintain a close alliance with Saudi Arabia.
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"Historic" winter storm pounds the northeastern United States hitting tens of millions of people and forcing a halt to public transportation and the rare cancelation of Broadway shows. Duration: 00:58.
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UN Urges Moscow to Press for End to Separatist Violence in Ukraine by webdesk@voanews.com (Margaret Besheer)
The U.N.’s political chief urged Russia on Monday to use its influence among separatist rebels in Ukraine to stop hostilities. The appeal comes as the situation has escalated over the past three days, following separate deadly rocket attacks on a bus carrying civilians in Donetsk and shelling in the port city of Mariupol. Jeffrey Feltman told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that more than 5,000 people have been killed since the Ukrainian conflict began early last year. He urged Moscow to press the rebels to adhere to the Minsk agreement, recommit to the September cease-fire and back down from their offensive. “This will be a critical step in stopping the bloodshed,” he said. Russia has repeatedly denied Western accusations that it arms, finances and secretly fights alongside the separatists. Feltman noted that Saturday’s shelling of Mariupol, which killed 30 and wounded more than 100, came from a rebel-held area. “The OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] Special Monitoring mission reported, based on crater analysis, that the rockets originated from territory controlled by the so-called 'Donetsk People’s Republic,'” he said. He said that city lies outside the immediate conflict zone and the conclusion could be drawn that the perpetrators of the attack knowingly targeted civilians - which is an international crime. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power reiterated Washington’s outrage at Moscow’s hand in the conflict, saying Russia is trying “to play the international community for the fool” by blaming the surge in violence on the Ukrainian government. “This offensive is made in Moscow," she said. "It is waged by Russian-trained and Russian-funded separatists who use Russian missiles and Russian tanks, who are backed up by Russian troops and whose operations receive direct Russian assistance.” Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin said Moscow is “seriously concerned” by the escalation. He said his government has consistently urged the parties toward direct talks and he accused Washington of “egging on the Ukrainian hawks,” pushing them toward a military solution of the conflict.
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Russia’s Emerging Holy War by John R. Schindler
At the beginning of this week, President Barack Obama explained that Russia, hit hard by Western sanctions, is losing in its confrontation with the West and NATO caused by Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. In his State of the Union address, Obama displayed similar swag and bluster against both the Kremlin and Congressional Republicans, seemingly without regard for any recent events. As the President explained:
We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small — by opposing Russian aggression, supporting Ukraine’s democracy and reassuring our NATO allies. Last year, as we were doing the hard work of imposing sanctions along with our allies, some suggested that Mr. Putin’s aggression was a masterful display of strategy and strength. Well, today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated, with its economy in tatters. That’s how America leads — not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve.
“Every one of these sentences is, to put it mildly, a stretch,” explained one seasoned Kremlin-watcher, and the news this week from Ukraine has been grim, contra Obama’s hopeful pose. While Russia’s economy remains seriously hurt from sanctions and, even more, the sharp drop in oil prices, the notion that this is taming Putin’s baser urges is not only untrue, it’s more likely the opposite of the truth, as I cautioned a month ago.
Facts have increasingly been getting in the way of this White House’s messaging, on many fronts, so just as Obama now calls for political bipartisanship, after six years of doing the opposite, all the while ignoring the massive blowout of his own party by the Republicans in Congress that just happenedagain, for the second time in his presidency, Obama likewise seems to think that a bit of swag, plus a public taunt, aimed at Putin when the former KGB man is down on his luck will have the desired geopolitical effect. This White House does not seem to dwell on the fact that, while the domestic enemy may be politically obstructionist, the foreign enemyhas all sorts of Special War unpleasantness in his arsenal, not to mention thousands of nuclear weapons.
If nothing else, the current crisis has demonstrated to Russians, with Kremlin prodding, that the United States remains their Main Enemy that it was for decades, now led by the arrogant and weak Obama, who is hated by the Russian public. The Chekists who run Putin’s Russia, who protested for years that America wanted to defeat Russia’s post-Cold War resurgence, that the U.S. will stop at nothing to bring Russia to heel while humiliating it, have been proved right, at least as far as most Russians are concerned.
To the shock and dismay of hopeful Westerners, including nearly all NATO leaders, the hard hit of sanctions has caused Russians to hate the West, not Putin. Most Russians view their war in Ukraine as a legitimate defense of Russians and Russian interests, certainly nothing like America’s aggressive wars of choice halfway around the world, and they are backing the Kremlin now.
Word of this defiance has even crept intoThe New York Times, which otherwise is a pitch-perfect expression of the WEIRD worldview. As Russian troops are advancing deeper into Ukraine, fresh from victory at Donetsk, NYT asked what on earth is going on here, why would Russians want more war now that the cost of it all to their economy is becoming obvious? The explanation was proffered by a Moscow economist: “The influence of economists as a whole has completely vanished,” he opined about the Kremlin: “The country is on a holy mission. It’s at war with the United States, so why would you bother about the small battleground, the economy?”
Once again, Westerners have imagined Putin is just like one of their leaders — cautious, timid even, obsessed with Wall Street and finely tuned to what big donors care about — when our Chekist-in-Charge is nothing of the sort. With perfect timing, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, addressed the Duma this week, for the very first time, delivering a speech long on social conservatism, including a plea to ban abortions to help Russian demographics, as well as a caution to ignore the West’s dangerous “pseudo-values.” Putin’s Russia is inching ever closer to Byzantine-style symphonia, and in the war against America and the West that is coming — and, according to many Russians, is already here — the Kremlin wants its people to be spiritually fortified for a long fight.
Bankers and oligarchs, who get much attention from the Western media, have become peripheral figures in Moscow. Months before the Ukraine crisis broke with Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Putin privately warned wealthy men whom he deemed friends and supporters to start getting their money out of the West, as tough times were coming. In the Kremlin’s view, oligarchs who failed to do this, and are now facing ruin, have nobody to blame but themselves. Any billionaires who criticize Putin too freely will meet with prison or worse.
It’s increasingly clear that the security sector, what Russians term the special services, are running the show. They are Putin’s natural powerbase, his “comfort zone” in Western parlance, plus they are the guarantor of his maintaining power as the economic crisis worsens. Current reports indicate that Putin’s inner circle now is made up entirely of siloviki, to use the Russian term, men from the special services: National Security Council head Nikolai Patrushev, Federal Security Service (FSB) head Aleksandr Bortnikov, Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) head Mikhail Fradkov, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu.
Patrushev headed the FSB from 1999, the beginning of Putin’s presidency, to 2008, and was a previously a career KGB officer, serving in Leningrad counterintelligence just like Putin: and just like Putin, he is a Chekist to his core. Current FSB director Bortnikov, who took over from Patrushev in 2008, is another career Chekist who joined the KGB after college and, yet again, comes out of the Leningrad office. Fradkov is not officially a Chekist by background, having spent the early years of his Kremlin career in foreign trade matters, but he was “close” to the KGB during that time, and he has headed the SVR, the successor to the KGB’s elite First Chief Directorate, since 2007; it says something about Putin’s confidence in him that Fradkov survived the 2010 debacle of the exposure of the SVR’s Illegals network in the United States, which was nearly as demoralizing to the SVR asthe Snowden Operation has been for U.S. intelligence. The last, Shoygu, who has headed the powerful defense ministry since 2012, is not a military man by background, yet has longstanding ties to military intelligence (GRU).
As Russia’s economic crisis has mounted, Putin has unsurprisingly turned to fellow Chekists, some of them very like himself by background. They share a worldview which is conspiratorial and deeply anti-Western; they view America as their Main Enemy and now believe Obama is on a mission to destroy Russia. That they will not allow, and they will stop at nothing to halt what prominent Orthodox clerics recently have termed the “American project” that wants to destroy Holy Russia. This volatile combination of Chekist conspiracy-thinking and Orthodox Third Rome mysticism, plus Russian xenophobia and a genuine economic crisis, means that 2015 promises to be a dangerous year for the world. The Kremlin now believes they are at war with the United States, an Orthodox Holy War in the eyes of many Russians, and that struggle is defensive and legitimate. It would be good if Obama and his staff paid attention. This is about much more than Ukraine.
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A former CIA officer has been convicted of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter about a secret U.S. operation aimed at deterring Iran’s nuclear ambition
World Briefing: Spain: 10 Die in Greek-NATO Jet Crashby By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Greek F-16 fighter jet crashed into other planes on the ground during a NATO training program in southeastern Spain on Monday, killing at least 10 people, Spain’s Defense Ministry said.
 Wall Street Journal |
Russia Rating Slips to Junk, and the Ruble Takes a Beating
Wall Street Journal Russia's fractured economy suffered another potential blow Monday after credit-rating firm Standard & Poor's cut the country's credit rating to junk, sending it below investment grade for the first time in more than a decade. While the move had been ... S&P downgrades Russia's sovereign credit rating to 'junk'Reuters Russia Cut To 'Junk' By S&PBusiness Insider S&P Cuts Russia's Rating to Junk Putting It Below Investment GradeBloomberg Forbes -ABC News -The Guardian all 202 news articles » |
 PYMNTS.com |
Russia Warns Exclusion From Swift Tantamount To “War”
PYMNTS.com Andrei Kostin, chief executive of Russia's second-largest bank VTB, warned Friday that keeping his country from the Swift banking payment system would be tantamount to “war”. The possibility that Russia might be locked out of Swift has set off alarm ... A Key Day in the Ukrainian Conflict? Will Russia Respond to US-NATO Threats?Center for Research on Globalization all 14 news articles » |
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The decision late last year by several prominent North Caucasus insurgency commanders to retract their oath of allegiance to Caucasus Emirate leader Aliaskhab Kebekov (Sheikh Ali Abu-Mukhammad) and pledge loyalty to Islamic State (IS) leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi has apparently engendered confusion and discord not only across the North Caucasus but within the Chechen diaspora community.
Russian-backed rebels pushed forward Monday with a new offensive that has brought all-out war back to eastern Ukraine after a five-month ceasefire.
 СЕГОДНЯ |
Эксперт: НАТО на Украине является воюющей стороной
ИА REGNUM «Можно с уверенностью говорить, что НАТО не просто имеет отношение к войне на Украине, фактически Альянс — одна из воюющих сторон», — заявил главный редактор журнала «Национальная оборона» Игорь Коротченко 26 января корреспонденту ИА REGNUM. «Страны НАТО ... Украина продолжает работу со странами-членами НАТО по вопросам поставок оружияСЕГОДНЯ Киев запросил у НАТО допмощьМосковский комсомолец Киев запросил дополнительную военную помощь у партнеровГазета.Ru Утро.Ru -ТАСС -Mail.Ru Все похожие статьи: 25 » |
 Newsweek |
Russia Adds 70 New Aircraft to Military District Around Crimea
Newsweek Russia has purchased 70 new army jets and helicopters which will be stationed across the annexed Crimean peninsula over the course of the coming year. The move is part of a massive overhaul of the facilities in its Southern Military District, which ... |
Stunning pictures of the Russian capital taken with a drone
 РИА Новости |
Киев превратил свою армию в натовский легион
Российская Газета Украинская армия - это уже не армия, это иностранный легион, в данном случае иностранный натовский легион, который, конечно, не преследует целей национальных интересов Украины. Там совсем другие цели, и связаны они с достижением геополитических целей сдерживания ... CРОЧНО: Гражданам Украины призывного возраста в могут продлить срок пребывания в РоссииBFM.Ru Путин поможет украинцам избежать призыва в армиюИменно.ру Путин предложил украинским призывникам отсидеться в РоссииСвободная пресса sovsekretno -Актуальные новости - периодическое издание о событиях в мире -Федеральные новости 24 Все похожие статьи: 315 » |
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 Вести.Ru |
Приказ Киева: прорываться к Донецку любой ценой
Вести.Ru Украинская тяжелая артиллерия возобновила массированные обстрелы Донецка. В нескольких районах города поврежден газопровод и электроподстанции. Обесточены десятки домов. Интенсивный огонь велся по Докучаевску и Горловке. Много раненых, все они мирные граждане. Горловка стала самым обстреливаемым городом в ДонбассеНТВ.ru ЛНР и ДНР создадут общий фронт - ЗахарченкоКорреспондент.net Все похожие статьи: 187 » |
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Неопределенность сохраняется, нефть остается дешевой Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/saudi-oil/2613863.html.
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| Time: 02:25 | More in News & Politics |
 USA TODAY |
NATO chief: Russia is behind Ukraine rocket attack
USA TODAY NATO's chief said Monday that a weekend rocket attack in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol came from areas controlled by separatists who are receiving more equipment from Russia. "We condemn the sharp escalation of violence along the cease-fire line in ... The Ukraine-Russia WarEuropean Council on Foreign Relations Threat Of New Sanctions Against Russia Sends The Ruble TumblingBusiness Insider Russia Defiant After More Threats From West Over UkraineU.S. News & World Report Voice of America -Bloomberg all 2,659 news articles » |
Top Russian Official Suing New York Timesby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
The head of state-owned Russian Railways says he filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times on January 26 in a Moscow court.
Standard & Poor's has cut Russia’s credit rating to junk level, putting it below investment grade for the first time in a decade.
Regular attacks from pro-Russian separatist forces
have the Ukrainian military struggling to rebound from losses at the Donetsk airport last week.
have the Ukrainian military struggling to rebound from losses at the Donetsk airport last week.
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