Riyadh regime employs arbitrary arrest to muffle Israel normalization opponents
![IRGC Quds force cmdr.: US will leave Iraq with more humiliation than what it suffered in Afghanistan The commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the US terrorist forces in Iraq will have to leave the Arab country with more humiliation than what they experienced in Afghanistan. Brigadier General Esmail Qa'ani made the remarks at a ceremony held in Iran’s northeastern city of Mashhad on Thursday to commemorate the second martyrdom anniversary of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and his companions in a US drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport. Qa'ani stressed that the Americans will be finally expelled from the region as they are facing various problems there while the resistance front is advancing on a daily basis. “By the grace of God, all Americans will be expelled ... from this region,” the IRGC’s Quds Force commander said. “A considerable number of Americans have been forced out of this region and this will continue. As for Iraq, they must leave Iraq, otherwise; the resistance front inside Iraq will make the Americans miserable and they will have to leave Iraq under more humiliated conditions than what they experienced in Afghanistan and they have no other choice but to leave Iraq.” There are about 2,500 US soldiers and another 1,000 coalition troopers currently based in Iraq. Qa'ani added that resistance front forces are currently equipped with missiles and weapons which are capable of targeting US warships and carriers anywhere in the region. Pointing to the 11-day Gaza war in May last year, Qa'ani said Palestinian resistance factions in the coastal enclave fired 3,000 missiles at Israel, 100 of which hit Tel Aviv. “The Americans built an army for Afghanistan for 20 years but the army could not resist for 20 days, and on the other side of the region, the Zionist regime is building a six-meter wall around its occupied territory, however, In last summer's battle, the resistance [front forces] fired 3,000 rockets from the besieged Gaza Strip at Israel and nearly 100 rockets landed in the regime's capital,” he noted. Qa’ani condemned as the "most cowardly" the assassination of General Soleimani and his Iraqi comrade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), along with their companions in a US drone strike authorized by ex-President Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. Both commanders were highly revered across the Middle East because of their key role in fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Five days after the heinous crime, in a military operation codenamed Operation Martyr Soleimani, the IRGC launched a volley of ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq’s western province of Anbar. Iran said missile strike was only a “first slap” in its process of taking “hard revenge” and that it would not rest under the US military leaves the Middle East in disgrace.](https://shiite.news/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/37541ac8-f311-4c8e-99cb-91b488ccc1cc.jpg)
An independent nongovernmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia says the Riyadh regime is making use of arbitrary arrest to silence vociferous opponents of normalization of diplomatic relations between the kingdom and Israel.
The London-based rights group ALQST said Saudi officials have kept writer and researcher Abdullah al-Yahya behind bars since December 24 last year, after he criticized normalization with the Israeli regime in a series of posts published on Twitter.
The organization highlighted that Yahya is not the first Saudi citizen to be arrested because of his support for the Palestinian cause and opposition to normalization, as Saudi authorities have previously detained dozens of preachers, academics and bloggers for their refusal to establishment of ties between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
Last April, the so-called Special Criminal Court in Riyadh sentenced famous Saudi blogger Abdulaziz al-Odah to five years in prison for opposing normalization of relations with the Tel Aviv regime.
The Prisoners of Conscience, an independent nongovernmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia, announced in a post on its official Twitter page at the time that Odah was detained in September 2019 on the grounds of his rejection of normalization with Israel.
On Monday, a high-ranking official at the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs said Israel is working behind the scenes towards normalization of diplomatic relations with Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, more than a year after the regime reached similar US-brokered agreements with a number of Arab states.
“These are the two countries we want to reach an agreement with, but it is a slow process that takes a lot of time and effort. We hope for the best,” the unnamed official noted at a media briefing.
Even though Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have formal diplomatic relations, Riyadh has taken a number of steps in recent years toward normalizing relations with the Tel Aviv regime.
Saudi authorities were said to have given a behind-the-scenes green light to the UAE forging ties with Israel last year, and have since allowed Israeli aircraft to use the kingdom’s airspace for direct flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Riyadh says it would not normalize relations with Tel Aviv outside of the framework of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The United States has raised the issue of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel in recent years. Jared Kushner, ex-US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, wrote in March 2021 that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel was “in sight”.
According to a report by US media outlet Axios, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan brought up the idea of Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in September 2021.
