Saudi Arabia is building its Great Wall

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“The black-clad savages of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham pose a profound threat first to neighboring Arab regimes and only then to Europe and the United States,” said Karen Elliott House, Pulitzer Prize winner for her coverage of the Middle East in an interview with Wall Street Journal TV.

Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest country in the region, is aware that after Iraq and Syria, ISIL’s sights are set on the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina— and on its oil reserves.

The plan for a wall was first discussed in Riyad has early as 2006. With ISIL's recent aggressive push to control Iraq's border crossings with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Kingdom not only reinforced border security deploying 30,000 National Guard troops, but started also to construct the wall.

The fully-integrated tech solution enabled by Airbus Defence and Space consists of 3 fences, vehicles, response stations, surveillance towers equipped with radars and day/night cameras with image recognition technologies; all connected to 7 command centers and to the Ministry of Interior over 1.45 million km of fiber-optic cables.

The country built already a barrier on its border with Yemen. in 2013, and has by far the largest and most advanced air force in the region, equipped and trained by the U.S. and the UK. However, until it joined the US-led airstrikes against the IS two months ago, it kept a low profile.

“The House of Saud, which has ruled the kingdom off and on for more than 270 years, has survived by seeking to avoid confrontations while trying to satisfy everyone. As a result it has been reliant on others—essentially the U.S.—for its security,” House explained.

It took some pressing for King Abdullah to call on Muslim leaders to "stand in the face of those trying to depict Islam as a religion of extremism, hatred and terrorism," and then another few weeks for the Saudi Grand Mufti to declare that "extremism, radicalism and terrorism were the enemy Number One of Islam."

There are reasons for this behavior. Robert Fisk, The Independent’s award-winning Middle East correspondent, wrote in June 2014: after the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, “meet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit, Raqqa in Syria — and possibly Baghdad... From Aleppo to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of ISIS and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis — and by Kuwaiti oligarchs — now rule thousands of square miles.”

On the heels of Fisk’s articles, the Saudi Embassy in London asked the daily to make clear that “the Saudi Arabian government unequivocally condemns the actions of ISIS, and that it had taken positive action to discourage any private funding or support for ISIS by Saudi citizens.“ Religious extremist groups in the Kingdom are blacklisted since March 2014.

Both ISIS and the Saudi Kingdom embrace the same Islamic doctrine. The Al Saud kings have ruled since the 18th century claiming to be the promoters and protectors of Wahhabism, an austere version of Islam, but ISIS sees the royal family as a ward of the West, and is now challenging the House’s legitimacy as ruler of Saudi Arabia.

According to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least 1,600 young Saudis have already joined ISIS and many other support it online with hashtags like #ABillionMuslimsfortheVictoryoftheISIS and #TheAgeoftheISISConquest. Some wealthy Saudis have even provided financial support to ISIS, House explained, some buying insurance against an ISIS victory, others sharing a desire for a Wahhabi resurgence “ in a corrupt kingdom in which royal rulers put their own profligacy ahead of the needs of Allah's flock.” Such a resurgence outside the kingdom but supported domestically is a serious threat—and another reason to confront the terrorist army, because internal support for the "caliphate" will only increase if ISIS grows.

Thus, besides “walling itself off”, the Saudi leadership is falling now with a heavy hand on ISIS supporters, tracking their every move, and arresting and jailing them for up to 20 years, when not killing them "in action". “I've been stopped by regular police before and by these special forces recently”, says a businessperson who travels often to Ryhad, and asked to remain anonymous, “ and the difference is unbelievable. The latter are highly trained and don’t joke around.” The end of its ostrich strategy, it seems.

A high-tech "Great Wall" to fend off mostly light infantry forces thus makes sense – Airbus Defence and Space did not disclose at our request technical details, as they are considered sensitive. A fence would undoubtedly be ineffective against sophisticated surface-to-air missiles or an army with air superiority, which ISIS is not. Saudi Arabia — with its Western allies– would certainly be able to repel incursions even without a wall, but discouraging ISIS from even invading in the first place could prove good tactics. The main purpose of China's Great Wall was also to provide early warning and a show of force to potential invaders.

The Arabic Maginot Line can help augment Saudi Arabia's defenses, with 99% of its usefulness coming likely from the networked array of advanced sensors and rapid response capability, and 1% from the physical barriers itself. Sand storms could be a challenge, but tunnels are hard to dig in sand. Moreover, walls are not new to the region. Even Moses is said to have built a barrier wall.

Author's Note: King Abdullah passed away as we were publishing this post. His brother Salman now rules Saudia Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.