WASHINGTON – The execution of a prominent Shiite cleric may have been calculated by Saudi Arabia to disrupt coming multilateral peace talks on the four-year Syrian civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition, a high-level Russian official has said in a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The Saudis on Jan. 2 beheaded Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr as part of a series of executions that included 46 others accused of terrorism.
The execution immediately set off violent demonstrations in Shiite Iran and throughout the Middle East, prompting protesters to torch the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. The Saudi response was to break diplomatic relations between the two countries.
A Russian official who insisted on anonymity said the Saudi goals may have included disrupting the coming peace talks to be held by 19 global powers in Vienna to establish a nationwide Syrian ceasefire.
The Russian and the Saudis have been in sharp disagreement on just who will represent the Syrian opposition. The Saudis already met with some opposition groups in Riyadh in December.
But the source said Russians regard some of the opposition groups – namely the Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham – as "jihadi Salafists and need to be killed."
In addition, the Russians are concerned that the Kurds, who control a large portion of northern Syria, weren’t invited to the Saudi-sponsored Syrian opposition meeting.
Get the rest of this report, and much more, and Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The Russian's concern over the Vienna meeting was echoed by other regional experts who say the Saudis, who represent an extremist form of Sunni Islam, or Wahhabism, want to extend influence over Syria in an effort to blunt Shiite Iran's influence.
The Saudis say Iran has created what it refers to as a "Shiite Crescent" which is to offset the Saudi-led "Sunni Crescent" of Arab countries. The Saudis also are upset over Iran's influence in Iraq, as well as in Syria and Lebanon.
As a result, it has helped finance and provide military equipment to jihadi fighters in a series of proxy wars with Iran from Syria, Iraq to Bahrain and now Yemen.
With the Russians backing the Iranians in keeping Assad, a Shiite-Alawite, in power for now, this went against the Saudi designs for the future of Syria whose population is some 80 percent Sunni.
In opposing the composition of the Syrian opposition representatives at the Riyadh conference, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian lashed out at the Saudis for inviting what he termed "terrorist groups."
"The Riyadh conference contradicted the declaration adopted on Syria in the second round of talks on Syria held in Vienna," Abdollahian told FNA.
"Attempts to hold periphery meetings on Syria in Saudi Arabia and Jordan are outside the Vienna declaration, and they divert the political efforts made in Vienna on Syria from their natural course and push (the upcoming Vienna III meeting) into failure," Abdollahian said.
Get the rest of this report, and much more, and Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.