Saudia Arabia in Afghanistan

Saudi Arabia to enhance its role in Afghan peace process:

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia has agreed to play a leading role in starting a new peace process in Afghanistan, as part of the latest U.S.-led strategy to find a political solution to America’s longest war. U.S. and Afghan sources have indicated that Saudi Arabia could bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and act as guarantors for a possible peace deal, largely due to its religious clout as the birthplace of Islam and historical ties with the insurgent group. The WSJ reports say that the US National Security Council is
spearheading the new four-nation effort, which includes the United Arab Emirates. The four nations have agreed to create a working group that will meet regularly to decide on a road map to peace in Afghanistan. The new initiative could at a later stage be widened to include other countries, with the UAE or Saudi Arabia hosting future talks.

The main obstacle before the peace process is the fact that the Taliban have split into several groups, some of which are close to Iran and Qatar. While the kingdom is keen to dilute Iranian influence in Afghanistan, it will need to gain the support of the various Taliban groups. Some of them believe that the Saudis are trying to sow divisions within the Taliban, after its officials met splinter groups that refuse to recognize the group’s new leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has cultivated ties with Iran.

Missile attacks on Saudi Arabia:

On March 25, Houthi forces in Yemen fired seven missiles at Riyadh. Saudi Arabia confirmed the launches and asserted that it successfully intercepted all seven. However, Jeffery Lewis, writing in Foreign Policy, has said that that the interception did not happen; he says: “There’s no evidence that Saudi Arabia intercepted any missiles at all. And that raises uncomfortable questions not just about the Saudis, but about the United States, which
seems to have sold them — and its own public — a lemon of a missile defence system.” He has reached this conclusion on the basis on detailed studies by him and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies of two different missile attacks on Saudi Arabia from November and December 2017.

Lewis has concluded: “In both cases, we found that it is very unlikely the missiles were shot down, despite officials’ statements to the contrary. Our approach was simple: We mapped where the debris, including the missile airframe and warhead, fell and where the interceptors were located… In both cases, it was clear to us that, despite official Saudi claims, neither missile was shot down. I am not even sure that Saudi Arabia even tried to intercept the first missile in November…And that raises a disquieting thought: Is there any reason to think the Patriot system even works?”