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Oil, sand and speed: Saudi gearheads take on towering dunes

Wearing a helmet and strapped securely into his four-wheel-drive, Abdelilah al-Rabea tore off across the Saudi desert, kicking up clouds of sand as a crowd of hundreds cheered him on.Every year through the end of April, droves of people flock to Zulfi, more than 200 kilometres northwest of Riyadh, where adrenaline-seeking motorists drive superpowered cars across steep dunes.Dune bashing, or tatees in Arabic, is an adventure sport that involves driving off-road across challenging desert landscapes, and has long been a popular pastime in the oil-rich kingdom.”This is a popular sport in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf because we have these dunes,” Rabea said.It requires “considerable effort”, he added, but the payoff is “a real rush of adrenaline”.Abdallah al-Amar, who came to watch the show with his son, said spectators were willing to “travel great distances” for the meets, flocking from all over the country to watch the drivers perform their stunts.Saudi Arabia, as the world’s biggest oil exporter, enjoys bargain-basement gasoline prices, with a litre costing just 2.33 riyals ($0.62).The cheap fuel, combined with prolonged periods of extreme heat, means cars reign supreme in the kingdom — further fuelling a passion for motorsports.- Waiting all year -In Zulfi, hundreds of cars and pick-up trucks dotted the sands as far as the eye can see, while nearby a motorist raced up a 100-metre-tall dune.”The cars you see here are specially equipped” for the challenge, Rabea told AFP.Crowds made up almost exclusively of men looked on, drinking coffee and tea on carpets strewn on the sand.Engines roared, crowds cheered and plumes of dust rose with every turn of the wheels.”We wait for this moment all year. We optimise the engine, the car, every single detail,” Rabea said.At the foot of the dune, modified cars and trucks with oversized tyres and powerful engines were lined up, waiting to take on the dunes.Their drivers were making final adjustments to the vehicles, preparing to defy gravity racing uphill at dizzying speed.- ‘Always loved the dunes’ -For many, dune bashing and desert drifting is a passion that began in adolescence.Badr al-Ghamas, a 33-year-old man from al-Qassim, began practising the sport when he was only 15 years old.”For some, sports means to play football or swimming. For us, it’s going dune bashing,” he said with a smile.One experienced drifter, Ahmed al-Rumi told AFP that drivers modified their cars to improve performance months in advance.But the extreme sport is not without risk.”A while ago, there was an accident because the car was not fully safe,” Rumi said, adding that no one was hurt.Many of the drivers, however, brushed off the risk of accidents, citing safety precautions they take.In his 2014 book “Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt”, researcher Pascal Menoret said this passion for speed and high-risk manoeuvres was rooted in a desire to project an image of power and masculinity.At sunset the drivers headed home, leaving behind splotches of oil on the sand and track marks scarring the dunes.But Amar said the gas-guzzling sport was not necessarily in conflict with nature.”I grew up on a farm and I’ve always loved the dunes,” he said.”Now, I bring along my son who shares the same passion.”

Two Iranians charged with procuring US drone parts

Two Iranian businessmen have been indicted for allegedly conspiring to procure US parts to build military attack drones, the Justice Department said Tuesday.Hossein Akbari, 63, and Reza Amidi, 62, are charged with money laundering and providing material support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.According to court documents, Akbari is chief executive of a company called Rah Roshd while Amidi is the commercial manager.The Justice Department said Akbari and Amidi, who previously worked at Qods Aviation Industries (QAI), an Iranian state-owned aerospace company, are both at large.”The defendants conspired to obtain US-origin parts needed to manufacture drones for military use in Iran and send those parts to Iran in violation of export control laws,” US Attorney John Durham said in a statement.”The IRGC and QAI have been core players in the Iranian military regime’s production of drones, which threaten the lives of civilians, US personnel and our country’s allies.”According to the Justice Department, Akbari and Amidi have evaded US sanctions since 2020 to procure US parts for use in Iranian-made drones, including the Mohajer-6.A Mohajer-6 drone used by the Russian military was shot down by the Ukranian Air Force in September 2022 and found to have parts manufactured by several US-based companies, it said.

Trump nominee says to press UK on Israel arms

Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to London said Tuesday he would ask Britain to reverse a partial suspension of arms exports to Israel, a decision taken over rights concerns.Warren Stephens, an Arkansas-based investment banker and political donor to Trump named for the coveted diplomatic posting, said he was “a little perplexed” by the decision of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.”What I’ve read about that, with the UK halting some of their shipments to Israel, is certainly concerning,” Stephens said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”I would do my part to encourage them to reinstate those permits and to try to get them, you know, what they need to continue the fight,” he said.He was responding to a question of Republican Senator Rick Scott, who said Starmer’s Labour Party “treats Israel as a problem and not a solution” and called on Stephens to “try to educate” Britain on Israel.Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, announced in September that Britain would suspend 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel out of fear the weapons could be used in breach of humanitarian law as Israel pounds Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.Starmer said at the time that Britain still supported “Israel’s right to self-defense” but was “committed to the international rule of law.”The decision reversed the position of the previous Conservative government and contrasted with the stance of the United States, which under president Joe Biden voiced concern about Israel’s use of US weapons but with one exception maintained shipments.The Biden administration did not criticize Starmer’s move, saying Britain made its own sovereign decisions.Trump has vowed robust support for Israel. Despite slashing the vast majority of US aid abroad, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered the speeding up of some $4 billion in weapons to Israel.

Hezbollah official among four dead in Israeli strike on Beirut

An Israeli strike on Beirut on Tuesday killed a Hezbollah official handling Palestinian affairs, in the second such raid within days on the Lebanese militant group’s stronghold despite a four-month ceasefire.Lebanon’s leaders condemned the attack, which came without warning at around 3:30 am (0030 GMT) during the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.The health ministry reported four dead including a woman. Israel and Hezbollah separately said the strike killed Hassan Bdair, who a source close to the Iran-backed group identified as its “deputy head for the Palestinian file”.The source, requesting anonymity, said Bdair was “at home with his family” at the time of the strike.A Hezbollah statement said his son was killed, calling on supporters to join the funeral procession scheduled for Wednesday. An AFP journalist said the raid destroyed the top floors of a multi-storey building.Ismael Noureddine, who lives opposite, described “a very big explosion” followed by another, saying his family “couldn’t see each other because of all the dust”.Israel previously struck the Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital’s south on Friday in response to rocket fire, after it issued an evacuation warning.A statement from the Israeli military and security services said that Bdair was Hezbollah’s liaison with Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose major October 2023 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.Bdair “directed Hamas terrorists and assisted them in planning and advancing a significant and imminent terror attack against Israeli civilians”, the Israeli statement said.- ‘Everyone’ a target -President Joseph Aoun urged Lebanon’s allies to support his country’s “right to full sovereignty”.Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called the attack a “clear breach” of the November 27 ceasefire that largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.The two later met to discuss “the repercussions of the Israeli aggression”, a presidency statement said.Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim Musawi said the government must “guarantee the safety of the Lebanese”, while fellow MP Ali Ammar warned that the group’s “patience has its limits”.Amal Saad, a Lebanese expert on Hezbollah who lectures at Cardiff University, said the group appeared to be waiting for the government to deal with the Israeli escalation “through its Western allies”.But she warned that Hezbollah’s “very identity and raison d’etre is being threatened here if it continues to sit on its hands”.Israel has continued to strike southern and eastern Lebanon since the truce began, hitting what it says are Hezbollah military targets that violate the agreement.Heiko Wimmen of the International Crisis Group think tank said that Israel has followed “an expansive interpretation of its right to self-defence” under the ceasefire agreement.While “this has been the ‘normal’ since November”, Israel’s military action was “now occurring in Beirut”, Wimmen told AFP.Jamal Badreddine, 67, who lives just 30 metres (yards) from where Tuesday’s strike hit, said that “everyone in the country, from young to old has become the target”.- ‘Hit harder’ -Israel’s strike on Beirut last week came in response to a second salvo of rockets from Lebanon, which it blamed on Hezbollah despite the group’s denials.The Lebanese army has said it located the launch site of Friday’s rocket fire, and security forces said they had arrested several suspects.Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October 2023 in support of ally Hamas. After nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, Israel launched an air and ground offensive in September.Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations’ secretary-general, called on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint and refrain from further escalatory activities”.Under the ceasefire, Israel was due to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops in five places it deems “strategic”.The agreement also required Hezbollah to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.”Hezbollah’s deterrence has been completely shattered,” said Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based Hezbollah expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.”Hezbollah cannot respond militarily. If they do, then the Israelis will just come back and hit even harder,” he said.

Israel PM drops security chief nominee under fire from Trump ally

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday he had reversed a decision to appoint a former navy commander as security agency chief following criticism, including from a key US senator.Netanyahu had announced on Monday his pick of Eli Sharvit to lead the Shin Bet internal security agency, pushing back against a supreme court decision to freeze his government’s move to dismiss incumbent director Ronen Bar.It later emerged that Sharvit had publicly opposed key policies of the Netanyahu government and US President Donald Trump, an important backer of the Israeli leader.”The prime minister thanked Vice Admiral Sharvit for his willingness to be called to duty but informed him that, after further consideration, he intends to examine other candidates,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.The abrupt about-turn by the prime minister on the key security appointment drew condemnation from the opposition.”The head of the Shin Bet is not just another appointment. It’s not a job that you announce and regret after 24 hours because of a few screams,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid.”This is the holiest of holies, it’s a violation of state security,” he said on social media.Former defence minister Benny Gantz said that Netanyahu again “proved” that “for him, political pressure outweighs the good of the state and its security”. The prime minister announced Bar’s dismissal on March 21, citing an “ongoing lack of trust”, but the supreme court swiftly suspended the decision until April 8.The move to dismiss him has sparked daily mass protests in Jerusalem.On Monday, hours after Sharvit’s appointment was announced, reports began surfacing that he had been among tens of thousands of Israelis who took to the streets in 2023 to oppose the Netanyahu government’s attempts to reform the judiciary.Israeli media reports also recalled that Sharvit — who served in the military for 36 years, five of them as head of the navy — had supported a 2022 agreement on the maritime border with Lebanon that Netanyahu had opposed.- Feared constitutional crisis -It was also revealed that Sharvit had penned an opinion piece criticising the US president’s policies on climate change, prompting staunch Trump ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, to criticise his nomination in a post on X.”The appointment of Eli Sharvit to be the new leader of the Shin Bet is beyond problematic,” Graham wrote on Monday.”There has never been a better supporter for the State of Israel than President Trump. The statements made by Eli Sharvit about President Trump and his polices will create unnecessary stress at a critical time. My advice to my Israeli friends is change course and do better vetting.”Sharvit’s criticism of the US president was published by Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist on January 23 under the headline: “Not just a political mistake: Trump is pushing the Earth to the abyss.”Legal experts told AFP on Monday that Netanyahu had so far not violated any law in his moves to find a replacement for Bar.But Gantz has said that no decision should be taken on the leadership of the Shin Bet agency until after the supreme court’s final decision, to avert a constitutional crisis.Bar’s relationship with the Netanyahu government soured after he blamed the executive for failings that had led to Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and following a Shin Bet probe into alleged covert payments from Qatar to some Netanyahu aides.Israeli police on Monday announced the arrest of two Netanyahu aides, Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, for their alleged involvement in the case local media have dubbed “Qatargate”.Netanyahu testified in the investigation, later Monday denouncing it as a “political witch hunt” aimed at “preventing the dismissal” of Bar.An Israeli court on Tuesday extended the detention of the two suspects for an additional three days, until Thursday.