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Defence minister Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) on 15 December announced that Saudi Arabia had formed the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism, a coalition of 34 mainly Sunni countries – with Gulf Co-operation Council partners Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE (but not Oman) on a list that also included Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia, Chad, Nigeria and Turkey – to co-ordinate the fight against “terrorist organisations”.

The execution of 47 Islamist militants the authorities had linked to terrorism was filled with symbolism: for Riyadh it marked the kingdom’s determination to show zero tolerance of terrorism and extremist Sunni or Shia takfiri (deviant) ideology; in Iran it was seen as yet another provocation against the region’s Shiite populations, leading radicals to invade Saudi legations in Tehran and Mashhad.

The first report from the House of Commons Defence Select Committee on the imminent government Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) provides a checklist of 11 potential threats and general vulnerabilities which ought to be addressed, and points to weaknesses in the UK response. It questions the government’s “tiered” approach to mapping the threat picture – which is soon to be set out in a new National Security Strategy – arguing that “it is flawed in assuming that the probability of potential threats becoming actual ones can reliably be predicted”. Greater emphasis should be given to military flexibility, the MPs said.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani declared a welcome victory with the 12-13 November ousting of Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) from Sinjar, liberating the Yazidi town more than a year after its traumatic occupation and severing Highway 47, a main supply route between IS-held territory in Iraq and Syria. Following the projection of US-led airpower – the US Department of Defence reported more than 30 airstrikes on Sinjar and surrounding areas during the offensive’s first day – the Kurdish advance, involving an estimated 7,500 troops, was largely unopposed.

A previously unknown branch of Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) claimed responsibility on 16 October for the murder of five and wounding of nine Shia worshippers at a mosque in the Saihat neighbourhood between Al-Qatif and Damman in Eastern Province’s main urban area. In an online statement, the so-called Bahrain Province group claimed it had sent gunman Shuja Al-Dosari to kill what it derogatorily called “rafida” (IS-speak for those who reject the Sunni way) as they completed their “polytheist rituals”, in reality Friday prayers. Bahrain Province is the third self-proclaimed branch of IS to emerge this year in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Russian intervention in Syria, coupled with an intensification of operations against Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) in Iraq and Syria, could represent a real setback for jihadist groups in the Levantine war zones (see GSN view). However, it has significantly increased the threat of ‘blowback’, not only in Europe but also in North African states which have provided thousands of recruits.

A Syrian identified as Yaser Mohammed Al-Barrazi and a Filipino “accomplice” were arrested in a raid on an illegal explosives factory in Riyadh, the Ministry of Interior said on 3 October. Al-Barrazi has been accused of plotting attacks. The raid, which took place on 1 October, found two explosives belts and bomb-making equipment. Those arrested belonged to a “deviant group”, the ministry said, using terminology often applied by the authorities to Al-Qaeda or Islamic State affiliates.

The US embassy in Riyadh issued a warning on 1 October, after it had “been made aware of information indicating that there are threats against unspecified compounds in which United States citizens reside in the Eastern Province”. Saudi authorities are actively investigating the threat, it said.

Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) has been making progress in northern Yemen, with militants pictured distributing leaflets in districts of Sanaa that the jihadist group has apparently wrested from the Houthi rebels and their allies. In this offensive, IS’ jihadist rival Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has suffered setbacks and the Saudi-led coalition has taken more casualties. IS on 6 October claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in Sanaa and Aden (now occupied by the coalition), which killed at least 25 people.

The 1970s opened with the Gulf monarchies searching for a security architecture fit for their purposes as the post-imperial United Kingdom withdrew from its dominance ‘east of Suez’. The six states that eventually created the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) in May 1981 – to which was added the Peninsula Shield force in 1984 – used the 1970s to resource their first major steps towards building well-equipped, western-backed armed forces. Riding high on a sea of petrodollars, Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest arms buyer by mid-decade, ordering $2.5bn-worth of arms in 1976 alone (approximately $10.5bn in today’s dollars).

A report by the Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the suspected mastermind of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing had been handed over to Saudi authorities threatens further complications in Riyadh’s relations with Iran and the United States, ahead of congressional votes on the nuclear deal and President Barack Obama’s scheduled 4 September meeting with King Salman Bin Abdelaziz at the White House. Ahmed Al-Mughassil, a senior leader of Iranian-backed Saudi group Hizbollah Al-Hijaz, had been living in Beirut under Lebanese Hizbollah’s protection.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has denied reports that it was the group holding British oil worker Douglas Robert Semple, who authorities in Abu Dhabi and London on 23 August said had been rescued by UAE forces in a military operation in Yemen. UAE state news agency WAM said 64-year-old Semple was rescued after being kidnapped 18 months earlier while working in Hadhramaut province, south-eastern Yemen.

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said on 7 July it had arrested three brothers suspected of being linked to the 26 June suicide bombing in Kuwait carried out by the Islamic State extremist group. One of the three was arrested in Kuwait, and is in the process of being extradited. The second was arrested in Taif governorate, in the region of Mecca.

On a day of horrific terrorist attacks on three continents, a young Saudi suicide bomber walked into a Shiite mosque in Kuwait filled with 2,000 worshippers during Friday prayers on 26 June, and blew himself up. The attack, quickly claimed by the Wilayat Najd (Najd province) branch of the Islamic State jihadist group (IS) that conducted similar attacks in Saudi Arabia in May, killed 27 people and injured 227, according to the Ministry of Interior; Kuwait was left reeling from the shock of its worst terrorist attack in decades.

The US Department of Defense said on 13 June that it had transferred six detainees, all of them understood to be Yemeni, from the Guantánamo Bay detention facility to Oman. The US is looking to close the facility, where 116 detainees remain. “The United States is grateful to the government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture,” the department said in a statement, adding that the two governments had co-ordinated to make sure the transfers took place “consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures”.