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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 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”.

Islamic State (IS) militants were quick to claim responsibility for a suicide bombing at a packed Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province on 22 May that killed 21 people and injured many more. It was the worst terrorist attack inside the kingdom since 2004 (see From the archive, page 13), and the first attack there to be claimed by IS, whose local branch issued a statement warning Shiites of “black days” ahead.The attack, during prayers at the Ali Ibn Abi Talib mosque in the village of Al-Qudayh, was followed on 29 May by another, also directed at Shiites worshipping at Friday prayers.

…For once, Saudi Arabia will not hit back with a state-funded campaign extolling the kingdom’s virtues: in contrast to the big media spend after the 11 September 2001 attacks, which proved largely self-defeating, GSN hears that the government has pulled some major advertising projects, preferring to keep a low profile while security forces work to eradicate underground groups. Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz’s media-savvy advisor Adel Al-Jubeir and the big two ambassadors, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan in Washington and Prince Turki Al-Faisal in London, have been spinning the message that terrorism is a problem, but the security forces can get on top of it.

French police have arrested around a dozen people suspected of involvement in the 2014 ambush of a Saudi prince’s convoy. The prince, widely reported to be Abdelaziz Bin Fahd, was travelling to the airport when masked gunmen swooped, stealing a Mercedes and later torching and abandoning it about 40km from the scene. According to an 18 May report by French news agency AFP, the suspects were picked up in the Paris region; a police source said some of them had been quickly identified after the carjacking, but that investigators had lacked evidence to detain them. Officials at the time said the car had around $280,000 in cash and embassy documents inside it.

It has been almost a year since the Islamic State (IS) Sunni extremist group overran Mosul, plunging Iraq into crisis and prompting the United States, Gulf states and other allies to start an air campaign against IS in both Iraq and Syria. The US-led operation has included giving support on the ground, in the form of advisors and training to hone the urban warfare skills of Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Iran has been another major player in Baghdad’s efforts to push back IS, sending its own military advisers to the army and Peshmerga.

The success of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), Shia militia and other allies in regaining control of Tikrit will provide critical indicators of Iraq’s ability to roll back the challenge of Islamic State (IS) and the Sunni rebellion that in 2014 allowed Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi to anoint himself ‘Caliph Ibrahim’ in Mosul. Western reporting of the assault on Salahaddin province, launched on 1 March, focused on prime minister Haider Al-Abadi’s insistence that a restructured ISF, its Shia militia allies and their all too obvious Iranian handlers should do everything possible not to alienate the region’s Sunni tribes and others who may dislike IS but have even more reason to fear their ‘liberators’.

The UAE said it had taken part in a series of airstrikes against Islamic State targets on 10 February, signalling its return to the campaign. Abu Dhabi is understood to have suspended its participation in the US-led air campaign in December, after Jordanian pilot Muath Al-Kasasbeh was captured by extremists when his F-16 crashed over north-eastern Syria, wanting Washington to guarantee better search-and-rescue efforts. News that Al-Kasasbeh had been burned alive by the extremists emerged in early February.

Several countries suspended flights to and from Baghdad International Airport on 26 January after bullets hit a flydubai passenger plane during landing, slightly damaging the fuselage and causing minor wounds to a six-year-old girl. An airport source told GSN Turkish Airlines, Royal Jordanian and Middle East Airlines had resumed flights, and that UAE and other Gulf airlines planned to do so on 5 February.