Saudi Arabia

SANAA, Yemen — For al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, the volunteer seemed ideal. He was willing to die in a suicide operation , and he had travel papers that would allow him to board a U.S.-bound flight. It was a perfect dangle, in the parlance of spycraft, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took the bait. The group's bombmaker fitted the man with a new version of a nonmetallic "underwear bomb. " What he didn't know was that the would-be martyr was an agent run by Saudi Arabia.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia says it has dedicated nine additional laboratories to help investigators track a deadly new respiratory virus related to SARS that appears to be centered in the kingdom. Thursday's Health Ministry announcement follows its report that two health care workers became ill this month after being exposed to patients with the virus. Experts are closely studying whether it can spread easily from person to person. Since September 2012, the World Health Organization has been informed...

RIYADH Over this year of Arab Spring revolt, Saudi Arabia has increasingly replaced the United States as the key status-quo power in the Middle East — a role that seems likely to expand even more in coming years as the Saudis boost their military and economic spending. Saudis describe the kingdom's growing role as a reaction, in part, to the diminished clout of the United States. They still regard the U.S.- Saudi relationship as valuable, but it's no longer seen as a guarantor of their security.

NEW YORK — A deadly new respiratory virus related to SARS has apparently spread from patients to health care workers in eastern Saudi Arabia, health officials said Wednesday. The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia told world health officials that two health care workers became ill this month after being exposed to patients with the virus. One is critically ill. Since September 2012, the World Health Organization has been informed of 40 confirmed cases of the virus, and 20 of the...

Christopher Boucek, 38, an authority on the Islamic world who had done research on Saudi Arabia and Yemen and was an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, died Nov. 2 at Reston Hospital Center. His wife, Marie Boucek, said he had a heart attack. He lived in Reston. Dr. Boucek first came to Washington in 1994 as an intern at the State Department. In the late 1990s, he worked with several D.C. organizations dealing with U.S.-Arab relations. He moved to Cairo in 2000 to edit an English-language newspaper and then returned...

Riyadh's Criminal Court is scheduled to announce a verdict Wednesday in a trial of two of Saudi Arabia's leading human rights activists. Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamid face 11 criminal charges, including tarnishing the reputation of the state and providing false information to international organizations about thousands of Saudis who have been arbitrarily detained. The six-month trial has received scant media attention — Saudi police detained a Sky News crew that tried to report on the final court hearing on Dec. 29. ...

INSIDE THE KINGDOM Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia By Robert Lacey Viking. 404 pp. $27.95 WP BOOKSTORE The fall of 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of three events that rocked the greater Middle East. In November and December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, U.S. hostages were taken in Iran, and extremists seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca. Political and religious extremism set in, and the United States was drawn more deeply...

The Nov. 7 editorial "Saudis on Strike" missed the mark again. Whatever cosmetic steps toward democracy the Saudi monarchy has adopted or allowed to be taken by courageous Saudi men and women are the results of external pressure, especially from the Bush administration, and the unprecedented U.S. media exposure of the Saudi ruling elites' discriminatory domestic and global policies after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. While King Abdullah has tried to appease the West by opening up one of the most politically and socially...

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia A few miles from the blinged-out shopping malls of Saudi Arabia's capital, Souad al-Shamir lives in a concrete house in a trash-strewn alley, with no job, no money, five children younger than 14 and an unemployed husband who is laid up with chronic heart problems. "We are at the bottom," she said, sobbing hard behind a black veil that left only her eyes visible. "My kids are crying, and I can't provide for them. " Millions of Saudis live in poverty, struggling on the...

In 2001, Sami Elzaharna was a 14-year-old in Saudi Arabia and not very engaged in Islam. Four years later, he moved to Maryland and was immediately hit by a wave of questions about his identity and beliefs. After hearing so much criticism of U.S. foreign policy, what was he to make of U.S. flags flying in front of mosques? How could he balance his affection for American culture with the stereotyping of Islam he saw all over the television news? Were the rituals and clothing he grew...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia has confirmed four new cases of a deadly new respiratory virus related to SARS that appears centered in the Arabian Peninsula but that has also been reported in Europe. The official Saudi Press Agency said Tuesday that one patient was treated and released from a hospital, while three others remain under medical care. Saudi authorities have reported nearly 30 cases since the virus was identified last year. Other cases have appeared in France, Germany and Britain, possibly linked to...

DETROIT — A Saudi man arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after federal agents accused him of lying about why he was traveling with a pressure cooker knew nothing about the device's use in Boston Marathon bombings, his attorney said Tuesday. Hussain Al Khawahir brought the pressure cooker at the request of his nephew, a college student in Ohio he planned to visit, defense lawyer James Howarth said. He said the device was to be used for cooking, not...

DETROIT — A Saudi man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after federal agents said he lied about why he was traveling with a pressure cooker, but his nephew said Monday that it was all a misunderstanding about a device he simply wanted for cooking. Two pressure cookers were used in last month's Boston Marathon bombings. Hussain Al Khawahir was being held in Detroit on allegations of lying to Customs and Border Protection agents and of using a...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia's monarch has replaced the commander of the kingdom's air force. The official Saudi Press Agency says that Crown Prince Salman received Lt. Gen. Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Ayesh on Saturday, the day after King Abdullah issued a decree referring him to retirement. The prince also received his replacement as commander, Lt. Gen. Fayyad bin Hamed bin Raqad. No reasons were given for the decrees, and it was not clear if al-Ayesh had been scheduled to retire.

WOBURN, Mass. — A tentative trial date has been set for an Irish nanny charged with murder in the death of a Massachusetts baby. Aisling (ASH'-ling) Brady McCarthy has pleaded not guilty in the January death of Rehma Sabir (REM'-uh suh-BEHR'). The Cambridge, Mass., girl was hospitalized on her first birthday with severe head injuries and died two days later. An April 7, 2014, trial date was set during a hearing Thursday in Middlesex Superior Court. The date is subject to change.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi journalist says he has been banned from writing in a Saudi newspaper after criticizing the Interior Ministry. Ali al-Elayan wrote on his Twitter account Tuesday that Al-Watan daily has stopped him from writing after publishing his last column, entitled "first message to Mohammed bin Nayef. " Prince Mohammed bin Nayef is the Interior Minister. In his message, he urged the minister to pay attention to the complaints of a large number of...

Manar Saud graduated in May from Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., with a master's degree in organizational leadership, paid for by a Saudi government scholarship. She came home to Riyadh eager to put her new skills to work, but after six months of looking for a job, she is still unemployed. "It's really sad," said Saud, 27, sipping coffee in a Starbucks, a black scarf framing her face, with floral trim on her long black abaya robe. "You come back so well prepared and so eager.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 23 -- Saudi Arabia inaugurated its first fully coeducational university on Wednesday, and its ruler declared that the institution will be a "beacon of tolerance" in a world threatened by extremists. The multibillion-dollar King Abdullah University of Science and Technology boasts state-of-the-art labs, the world's 14th-fastest supercomputer and one of the biggest endowments worldwide. It breaks many of the conservative country's social taboos by allowing, for the first time, men and women...

In 2001, Sami Elzaharna was a 14-year-old in Saudi Arabia and not very engaged in Islam. Four years later, he moved to Maryland and was immediately hit by a wave of questions about his identity and beliefs. After hearing so much criticism of U.S. foreign policy, what was he to make of U.S. flags flying in front of mosques? How could he balance his affection for American culture with the stereotyping of Islam he saw all over the television news? Were the rituals and clothing he grew up with actually...

Federal investigators are trying to determine whether two women who left a McLean house that reportedly is owned by Saudi Arabia were being held there in "domestic servitude," a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said. Agents from Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement received information about possible human trafficking at a home in the 6000 block of Orris Street, officials said. The women, who are Philippine nationals, left the...