The American press continues its policy of seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil of the Saudi Arabian government. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
Last week we reported on the Saudi regime’s brutal crackdown against its own citizens in the largely Shia town of Awamiya in the country’s East. We described the weeks long siege and official Saudi policy of ‘relocation’ of Shia residents as in truth a targeted cleansing of religious minorities, considered by the Wahhabi Sunni state authorities as heretics and apostates:
Activists describe it as a concealed sectarian-based cleansing of the Shia population, which has been historically persecuted by the Sunni Wahhabi state. Regional news outlets have published footage which they say reveals active sectarian anti-Shia cleansing on the part of Saudi forces currently underway.
Saudi state media has now confirmed completion of its campaign to drive all pockets of Shia resistance out of Awamiya and is currently maintaining a heavy troop presence in the town. It is unclear how many local Shia militants were engaged in the fighting, but it appears the military brought its full weight to bear against the contested Almosara neighborhood which forms Awamiya’s walled ‘old city’ section. As we reported, the Saudi military utilized:
…air power, heavy artillery, RPGs, snipers and armored assault vehicles in the area. Earlier this year the Saudi regime announced plans to demolish the neighborhood and hand it over to private developers in a kind of Saudi version of “eminent domain”; however, the presence of Shia militants hiding amidst its narrow roads and concealed alleyways appears the be the real motive for razing the district.
While Saudi Arabia is framing its actions in terms of necessary counter-terrorism police action, other regional media outlets and local activists now report over 500 homes flattened in Almosara by military bombardment and subsequent bulldozers that entered the town, with estimates of 8,000 families having fled the area. Evacuation notices were also issued to Shia residents in the area by the Albarahim private property developer, and stamped by the government’s National Joint Counterterrorism Command (NJCC), which was formed in 2003.
Meanwhile, The Independent (UK)
reported the death of a three-year-old boy who was shot by Saudi forces as his family merely drove their car near a protest earlier this summer. The boy succumbed to his wounds while in a local intensive care unit on Wednesday.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 