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Revised in March 2022, this abridged family tree of Bahrain's ruling Al-Khalifa family illustrates the main line of succession from Sheikh Ali (r. 1868-69) to King Hamad and Crown Prince Salman. Brief notes are provided for 24 members of the Al-Khalifa family, with the tree showing their relationship to the king and crown prince.

The issue leads with an examination of the UAE's relationship with Russia – one that might rankle with Washington, but appears to be in line with local public opinion. Political coverage also includes an update on preparations for Kuwait's National Assembly elections. Finance and business coverage leads with Qatar, where preparations for the start of the Fifa World Cup include a massive public arts campaign and the authorities will be hoping sport and culture remain the focus, rather than criticism about workers’ rights or any untoward behaviour by fans. Risk Management Reports are on Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. The GSN View focuses on Iran's protest movement.

Khalifa Bin Zayed: Exxon meeting

The long-running dispute between centrist/moderate and hardline/principalist elements in the Islamic Republic broke out into the open on 25 February when foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif posted his resignation on Instagram. In a subsequent interview with local daily Jomhuori Eslami, he complained that Iranian foreign policy had become the subject of “party and factional fighting.”Zarif’s resignation was ultimately rejected by President Hassan Rouhani, leading to suggestions among some observers that he had been strengthened by the episode.

The US Department of State approved a $1.15bn order for tanks and other equipment by Saudi Arabia on 9 August. The contract includes 153 M1/A2S Saudi Abrams main battle tanks as well as 419 machine guns, 133 smoke grenade launchers, 20 armoured recovery vehicles, and 6,650 rounds of training ammunition.The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a $495m contract for aircraft maintenance upgrade training for Boeing F-15S jets operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force. The work was awarded to California-based PKL Services on 1 September and will take place over the next five years.

Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Allawi withdrew his nomination on 1 March, ending a short-lived bid to lead the government and throwing into question the future political direction of the country. Allawi had failed on several occasions to gain the support of enough members of parliament for his cabinet, which he had finalised on 19 February.

Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed Al-Maktoum, daughter of Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, has been named as the new chair of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Previously vice-chair, Sheikha Latifa promised “a fresh strategy to firmly establish Dubai as a prominent cultural centre”. A new strategy dis ue to be set out in the next month. Latifa shares a name with her sister who was captured in March 2018 while trying to flee Dubai.

Gulf rulers have been to visit a more sprightly looking Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdelaziz, who remains in Agadir. Before travelling to Morocco, King Abdullah held talks in Jeddah. Acting Riyadh governor Prince Sattam Bin Abdelaziz performed funeral prayers. Ibn Saud’s former pilot, Captain Joe Grant, now 101 years old, continued to be fêted. Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal has been in Washington to hold talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Gulf-based observers say Qatar’s land border with Saudi Arabia along the Khor Al-Udeid inlet at the south-eastern foot of Qatar has changed. According to one Doha-based source, “the border changed a couple of months ago; it has been officially noted by the government mapping agency”.

Local press have been effusive in their coverage of King Salman Bin Abdulaziz in the early weeks of his month-long tour around Asia, which began in Malaysia in late February and also takes in Indonesia, Brunei, Japan, China and the Maldives. On each step of the journey, the scale of his entourage has prompted astonished headlines, with 1,500 people including 25 princes and ten ministers travelling with the king in a fleet of Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft.

With insurgency adding to an an unstable economic backdrop, Iraq has mustered a potentially important new line of export credit support from the UK, which has agreed to examine up to £1bn ($1.28bn)/yr of support for infrastructure projects over the next ten years. This will be provided through UK Export Finance (UKEF), under a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on 5 March. “UKEF and the government of Iraq are already exploring a number of projects for support under the MoU,” GSN was told by a source at the London-based export credit agency (ECA).

Pressure has been building in Canada, ahead of elections on 19 October, over London, Ontario-based General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada’s C$14.8bn ($11.4bn) sale of light armoured vehicles (LAVs), first announced in February 2014. Described by Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the “largest contract in Canadian history”, the deal has been attacked in televised election debates by the opposition New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois. Harper has acknowledged that Saudi Arabia may be guilty of human rights violations, but he said that any of Canada’s allies would have signed a similar deal, which is seen as preserving thousands of jobs.

The Houthi assault on Sanaa has changed the balance of power in Yemen, and brought its political transition to the brink of collapse. After weeks of anti-government marches and protest camps on the edge of the city, Houthi militias took control of the capital in less than 24 hours, the close-quarter battles and artillery bombardment subsiding on 21 September once a number of primary targets had been secured. A ceasefire agreement was hastily drafted, and signed by the Houthis and government later that day.

Like Iraq’s air force, the country’s military helicopter force became a politically sensitive issue after the fall of Saddam Hussein due to the perception that such forces were extensively used in internal repression. It was arguably General Norman Schwarzkopf’s agreement to let Saddam use his helicopters after the 1991 Safwan ceasefire that sealed the fate of the uprising against him at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Nevertheless, no modern military can function without helicopters, much less one involved in the most intense counter-insurgency in the region. As a result, the modern Iraqi helicopter force is developing faster than other aspects of the country’s air force.

Qatar has several newspapers – Al-Sharq (its sister English paper is The Peninsula), Al-Watan (its sister English paper is Qatar Tribune), Al-Raya/Arrayah (English paper, the Gulf Times) and Al-Arab.