Radio War Nerd EP112—Amal Saad on the November 4 Whirlwind in Riyadh

Guest: Amal Saad, author & professor Recorded: December 8, 2017 Things got hot & weird very fast on November 4, and the War Nerd is honored to have Lebanese University professor and author Amal Saad return to the show to help us make sense of it all. Nov 4 was a big day in Riyadh & the Levant: Lebanese PM Hariri suddenly announced from the Saudi capital he was resigning due to an alleged assassination plot by Hezbollah; a Houthi rebel missile nearly hit Riyadh's airport; and the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman unleashed a massive purge of the Saudi elite, royals and billionaires all. And that was just the start of a flood of weird events — continuing up to last week's assassination of former Yemen leader Saleh, and Trump's announcement that the US recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel... Afterwards (starting at 1:07:00) the Nerd and Ames discuss the latest in the world of wars: a closer look at the Sinai mosque massacre and the role of outsider jihadis vs local tribes; British "charity" aid delivered to Al Qaeda groups in Syria; British report says British intel maybe-shoulda-coulda flagged jihadists who attacked Britain (but were too useful for regime-change ops in Libya and elsewhere, so hey); Eric Prince's private CIA proposal; do Patriot anti-missile systems work?; crazy genocide talk from Anglo-America's North Korea armchair warriors; Subscriber comments & letters!... Amal Saad is author of "Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion"; she's published in Open Democracy, Foreign Affairs, and Al-Akhbar. She was a guest on RWN episode 92, on the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.