Saudi Arabia listed the Muslim Brotherhood and two Syrian jihadist groups as terrorist organizations on Friday, and ordered citizens fighting abroad to return home within 15 days or face imprisonment.
The move represents a major escalation against the Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and indicates rising concern in Riyadh over the potential risks to domestic security of Saudi extremists fighting in Syria.
Riyadh staunchly supports Sunni-led rebels battling to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but has long feared blowback from radical jihadist groups, particularly after a spate of attacks by a local al-Qaeda franchise from 2003 to 2006.
Egypt welcomed the Saudi decision and called on other Arab countries to follow suit.
“We look forward to see other countries, which signed the 1998 Arab League counter-terrorism treaty, follow the Saudi path and respect their commitments under the treaty,” Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty said in Cairo.
The Brotherhood, the largest Islamic movement in the region, said it was “surprised” and “pained” by the Saudi decision.
“This new position of the kingdom contrasts sharply with the history of its relations with the Brotherhood,” the group said.
“History has always shown that the Brotherhood has been a leader in spreading true Islamic thinking ... without extremism, as many of the kingdom’s scholars and leaders can testify,” it said.
A list published by the Saudi interior ministry designates as terrorist organisations the Brotherhood, al-Nusra Front, which is al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a rogue group fighting in both Syria and Iraq.
Also blacklisted are Shiite Muslim rebels known as Huthis in northern Yemen and “Hezbollah inside the kingdom,” a reference to a little-known Shiite group in overwhelmingly Sunni Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi interior ministry said it will prosecute anyone backing these groups “financially or morally,” or who express sympathies for them or seek to promote them through media and social networks.
It also forbids “participation in, calling for, or incitement to fighting in conflict zones in other countries.”
Saudis fighting abroad were given a 15-day ultimatum on Friday to return home or face imprisonment.
Prison also awaits anyone calling for demonstrations or taking part in them, the ministry said.
Analysts warned of the potential effects of the orders on civil liberties.
“There is fear that the text will be interpreted in such a way to muzzle freedom of expression,” sociologist Khaled al-Dakheel said.
Last month, King Abdullah already announced jail terms of up to 20 years for belonging to “terrorist groups” and fighting abroad and tough sanctions for anyone backing the incriminated organizations.
In 2011, Saudi Arabia set up specialized terrorism courts to try dozens of its citizens and foreigners accused of belonging to al-Qaeda or being involved in a wave of bloody attacks that swept the country from 2003.
The Saudi and other conservative Gulf monarchies have long been hostile to the Brotherhood, fearing that its brand of grass-roots activism and political Islam could undermine their authority.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors from Doha over Qatar’s backing of the Brotherhood in Egypt.
The move is an unprecedented escalation of tension with a fellow member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Kuwait and Oman. It reflected the fury of these three nations over Qatari support for Islamist groupings that emerged in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt who had long oppressed radical Islamists.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
‘DIGNITY’: The Ukrainian president said that ‘we did not not betray Ukraine then, we will not do so now,’ amid US pressure to give significant concessions to Russia Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pushed back against a US plan to end the war in Ukraine, while Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal that includes many of his hardline demands. With US President Donald Trump giving Ukraine less than a week to sign, Zelenskiy pledged to work to ensure any deal would not “betray” Ukraine’s interests, while acknowledging he risked losing Washington as an ally. Putin said the blueprint could “lay the foundation” for a final peace settlement, but threatened more land seizures if Ukraine walked away from negotiations. Ukraine faces one of the most challenging moments in its history,
RSS