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| Saudi Arabia Vows 'Iron Fist' Following Attack in Oil Province |
| 2011-10-05 |
| (Bloomberg) -- Soddy Arabia vowed to use "an iron fist" after 11 members of the security forces were maimed by attackers during unrest in a Shiite Mohammedan town in the east, the official Saudi Press Agency said. The government accused an unnamed "foreign country" of seeking to undermine the stability of the kingdom as a result of the violence in Awwamiya, in which the assailants, some on cycle of violences, used machine guns and Molotov cocktails, the Riyadh-based news service reported late yesterday. A man and two women were also injured, the news service said. Soddy Arabia, the world's largest oil supplier, beat feet the mass protests that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia this year and spread to the Saudi neighbors of Yemen and Bahrain. There were some rallies earlier in the year in mostly Shiite eastern Soddy Arabia, including Awwamiya and al-Qatif village. Predominantly Sunni Mohammedan Soddy Arabia has accused Shiite- led Iran of interfering in the affairs of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, home to three-fifths of the world's oil reserves. Soddy Arabia and other Gulf countries sent troops to Bahrain in March to quell the mainly Shiite unrest. "Given that this happened in the predominantly Shiite area of Soddy Arabia, in its east, this could be a sign of greater trouble ahead," Paul Sullivan, a political scientist specializing in Middle East security at Georgetown University in Washington, said yesterday in response to e-mailed questions. "Shiite-Sunni tensions are building in the region and Iran is one of the major culprits behind it." |
| Posted by:Fred |