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Generational change remains off the agenda, as the Saudi leadership moved with unusual speed to confirm Ibn Saud sons Salman and Ahmed as crown prince and interior minister after Prince Nayef’s death. Quick decision-making was needed to counter mounting demographic and geopolitical pressure

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The last few weeks has seen a marked escalation in Saudi-Iranian tension. Regionally the two powers are facing off in Syria, while Riyadh has accused Iran of meddling in its eastern region. The US has revealed dramatic details of a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington Adel Al-Jubair (see box, below), once again pointing the finger at Iran. But is it just a war of words and accusations, or is there more at play?

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Rarely do GCC disputes get more public, and it will take more than warm words from Riyadh to win back the Al-Nahyan into the currency union fold. For Abu Dhabi, bank location is the deal-breaker.

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On 25 June, Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al- Thani, marked one year in office (GSN 950/1). It has been a busy year in the region; for the most part, the trajectory marked by Qatar in that time has been a continuation of the path envisaged by his father, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa, but there are some areas in which 34-year-old Tamim has started to make himself heard.

Issue 1009 - 04 February 2016

IS ‘oil exports’ more myth than reality

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The ability of the Islamic State group (IS or Daesh) to finance its military operations in Iraq, Syria and its growing franchise in Libya using revenue from oil production in Iraq and Syria is in great doubt – putting into question the international focus on the jihadist group’s supposed hydrocarbons-driven business model. Far from controlling an informal but highly profitable export business – as it likes to claim – IS, and the area it controls, may be importing fuel from its neighbours

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Ambiguous statements over the UAE’s commitment to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen may have created some confusion over the Emirati leadership’s intentions, but the federation continues to wrack up casualties in the conflict. Lieutenant Rashid Ahmed Abdullah Al-Habsi was killed while on duty in Yemen on 5 September and Lance Corporal Saeed Anbar Juma Al-Falasi was buried on 22 September, having received treatment in Paris, France before succumbing to his wounds. The official death toll among Emirate forces involved in the conflict has now reached 97, according to GSN’s research, with the majority of casualties coming from the Northern Emirates.

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Reformist-backed Hassan Rouhani won over half the vote in Iran’s 14 June poll. The high turnout, and the reformist effort to rally around him, point to the public’s rejection of the extremist policies – both domestic and foreign – that have characterised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure.

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The overhaul of the upper ranks of Iran’s defence and security apparatus has continued this month, with Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointing Brigadier General Gholam Hossein Gheibparvar as commander of the Basij volunteer forces, in a decree issued on 7 December. It is the latest in a string of senior appointments within Iran’s military establishment this year. Among others, in June Major General Mohammad Bagheri was appointed as Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, Iran’s highest military policy body, replacing the long-serving Major General Hassan Firouzabadi who had held the job since 1989.

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From a niche product promoted by Saudi and other Gulf financiers, shariacompliant instruments and services have boomed in the post-9/11 world to emerge as a fast-growing asset class in the global ...

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North Korea may have the bomb, but Syria and Iran remain the foremost targets in American neo-conservatives’ sights. GSN examines the Hariri killing and the apparent cycle of mutual impotence in which the Syrian and US governments are trapped, in the first of a two-part series examining Washington’s approach to ‘pariah states’.

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The single point of consensus is that six years on from the attacks on New York and Washington, the United States has uncomfortably little to show for its huge investment in blood and treasure. GS...

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Operation Iraqi Freedom ended on 1 September after more than seven years of US ‘combat operations’ in Iraq. GSN marks the occasion by analysing the new US military mission, Operation New Dawn

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At the heart of the northern emirates’ energy infrastructure and striving to broaden its economic base, Sharjah has powerful commercial reasons to ensure the conclusion of this crucial import agreement with Iran.

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It’s only when its practitioners do something genuinely different to conventional bankers that Islamic finance is revealed at its best, argues this special report’s principal writer Nadine Marroushi.

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The reshaping of economic policy and changing of the guard in senior government ranks continues to gather momentum in Riyadh, with new ministers in charge of oil, electricity, commerce and transport, as well as a new central bank governor. The changes consolidate the rise of younger generation officials, many of them in the orbit of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). In a reshuffle that clearly carried MBS’s fingerprints, coming only days after his Vision 2030 document was released, Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) chairman and health minister Khalid Al-Falih was appointed to replace octogenarian petroleum and mineral resources minister Ali Al-Naimi on 7 May. At the same time, the Ministry of Water and Electricity was discontinued – its minister Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al-Hussein having been sacked in April. The ministry’s power sector activities were folded into Falih’s enlarged portfolio, the new Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources.