عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

Threats to Maritime Navigation Prompt Saudi Boosting of Regional Alliances

The commander of the Saudi Royal Navy floats the first corvette from the Sarawat project in 2019(SPA)
The commander of the Saudi Royal Navy floats the first corvette from the Sarawat project in 2019(SPA)
TT
TT

Threats to Maritime Navigation Prompt Saudi Boosting of Regional Alliances

The commander of the Saudi Royal Navy floats the first corvette from the Sarawat project in 2019(SPA)
The commander of the Saudi Royal Navy floats the first corvette from the Sarawat project in 2019(SPA)

Need for more international cooperation and coordination to deter threats facing the safety of waterways in the Arab region is increasing, especially for countries bordering exposed maritime corridors.

Safeguarding maritime navigation is geopolitically vital for the global economy.

Saudi Arabia, for example, oversees two important maritime routes in the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, with its coasts stretching for about 3,400 kilometers and its kingdom including 1,300 islands.

This has prompted the Saudi Defense Ministry to make building high combat capabilities for its military forces part and parcel of its strategy to meet regional challenges and threats.

The Kingdom has also strengthened its naval military capabilities through implementing qualitative projects that included signing deals for ships and aircraft and participating in naval drills with various other countries.

More so, political and military alliances were formed to protect maritime navigation.

It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia, which has one of the world’s largest military budgets, is looking to localize some 50% of its military spending by 2030.

Maritime navigation in the Arab Gulf has come under frequent attacks, mostly staged by Iranian proxies.

Iran-backed Houthi militias have been responsible for numerous terrorist hits that threatened navigation in Red Sea waters.

Houthis rely heavily on planting Iran-made naval mines.

The Saudi-led Arab Coalition has said it has found and destroyed five Iranian-made “Sadaf” naval mines during the past 24 hours, according to a statement published on Monday.

The coalition said it has seen an increase in the Houthi militia’s activity in planting naval mines in the southern parts of the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab strait in recent weeks.

There is an estimated 160 arbitrarily planted naval mines threatening Yemeni waters at the moment.

Houthis also use remote-controlled explosive vessels to threaten trade ships and civilian institutions in the Red Sea.

Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) Commander Vice Adm. Fahad Abdullah Al-Ghofaily, speaking at a recent event in Riyadh, recounted attacks that targeted three oil tankers and over three commercial ships sailing the region’s waters.

Commenting on finding solutions for those threats, writer and political researcher Abdullah al-Junaid argues that the source of danger must be first defined and the partial political cover given to some regional players, such as Iran and Turkey, must be lifted.

On the political and military alliances and blocs, Junaid noted that the maritime leadership of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is one of the regional examples of political and military alliances formed to secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

It was established to safeguard navigation based on common interests and the stability of energy markets.

The Peninsula Shield Force, which is the military arm of the GCC, must be viewed from the scope of future challenges it will meet, added Junaid.

Threats facing Saudi Arabia also prompted the formation of naval military alliances designed to raise readiness levels, enhance maritime security in the Arabian Gulf, and protect vital and strategic interests.

Early in 2020, the Council of Arab and African States Bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden was created as a mechanism for improving the security of regional waterways. This new Arab-African alliance has eight members: Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan and Yemen.

In November 2019, a multinational maritime security initiative, Coalition Task Force (CTF) Sentinel, composed of Australia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the UK, Albania and the United States, was also established with the aim to protect commercial vessels in the Arabian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and Bab Al-Mandeb.

As for the steps Saudi Arabia has taken to modernize its naval forces, the kingdom witnessed in July 2018 the state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) signing a contract with Spanish shipbuilding company Navantia to build five Avante 2200 corvettes for the RSNF.

The deal is set to be completed by 2022. In addition to the Avante 2200 corvettes, the contract includes setting out a plan for the creation of a naval construction center in Saudi Arabia. According to SAMI the agreement would “localize more than 60 percent of ships combat systems works,” including installation and integration in the Saudi market.

Riyadh has sought partnerships in the past few years with international suppliers to boost its domestic manufacturing capacity.

Regarding the localization of military manufactures, Saudi Arabia has succeeded in establishing joint cooperation with French builder CMN for the production and export of 39 HSI32 Inceptors.

The vessels are among the most modern speedboats and will contribute to raising combat readiness of the maritime units and help protect the strategic interests of the kingdom.

Most Viewed

 
 
Features

Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, a Haven for Journalists During Lebanon’s Civil War, Shuts Down

People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
TT
TT

Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, a Haven for Journalists During Lebanon’s Civil War, Shuts Down

People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)

During Lebanon’s civil war, the Commodore Hotel in western Beirut's Hamra district became iconic among the foreign press corps.

For many, it served as an unofficial newsroom where they could file dispatches even when communications systems were down elsewhere. Armed guards at the door provided some sense of protection as sniper fights and shelling were turning the cosmopolitan city to rubble.

The hotel even had its own much-loved mascot: a cheeky parrot.

The Commodore endured for decades after the 15-year civil war ended in 1990 — until this week, when it closed for good.

The main gate of the nine-story hotel with more than 200 rooms was shuttered Monday. Officials at the Commodore refused to speak to the media about the decision to close.

Although the country’s economy is beginning to recover from a protracted financial crisis that began in 2019, tensions in the region and the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war that was halted by a tenuous ceasefire in November 2024 are keeping many tourists away. Lengthy daily electricity cuts force businesses to rely on expensive private generators.

The Commodore is not the first of the crisis-battered country’s once-bustling hotels to shut down in recent years.

But for journalists who lived, worked and filed their dispatches there, its demise hits particularly hard.

“The Commodore was a hub of information — various guerrilla leaders, diplomats, spies and of course scores of journalists circled the cafes and lounges,” said Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East correspondent who covered the civil war. “On one occasion (late Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat himself dropped in to sip coffee with” with the hotel manager's father, he recalled.

A line to the outside world

At the height of the civil war, when telecommunications were dysfunctional and much of Beirut was cut off from the outside world, it was at the Commodore where journalists found land lines and Telex machines that always worked to send reports to their media organizations around the globe.

Across the front office desk in the wide lobby of the Commodore, there were two teleprinters that carried reports of The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies.

“The Commodore had a certain seedy charm. The rooms were basic, the mattresses lumpy and the meal fare wasn’t spectacular,” said Robert H. Reid, the AP’s former Middle East regional editor, who was among the AP journalists who covered the war. The hotel was across the street from the international agency’s Middle East head office at the time.

“The friendly staff and the camaraderie among the journalist-guests made the Commodore seem more like a social club where you could unwind after a day in one of the world’s most dangerous cities,” Reid said.

Llewellyn remembers that the hotel manager at the time, Yusuf Nazzal, told him in the late 1970s “that it was I who had given him the idea” to open such a hotel in a war zone.

Llewellyn said that during a long chat with Nazzal on a near-empty Middle East Airlines Jumbo flight from London to Beirut in the fall of 1975, he told him that there should be a hotel that would make sure journalists had good communications, “a street-wise and well-connected staff running the desks, the phones, the teletypes.”

During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and a nearly three-month siege of West Beirut by Israeli troops, journalists used the roof of the hotel to film fighter jets striking the city.

The parrot

One of the best-known characters at the Commodore was Coco the parrot, who was always in a cage near the bar. Patrons were often startled by what they thought was the whiz of an incoming shell, only to discover that it was Coco who made the sound.

AP’s chief Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson was a regular at the hotel before he was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985 and held for seven years, becoming one of the longest-held American hostages in history.

Videos of Anderson released by his kidnappers later showed him wearing a white T-shirt with the words “Hotel Commodore Lebanon.”

With the kidnapping of Anderson and other Western journalists, many foreign media workers left the predominantly-Muslim western part of Beirut, and after that the hotel lost its status as a safe haven for foreign journalists.

Ahmad Shbaro, who worked at different departments of the hotel until 1988, said the main reason behind the Commodore’s success was the presence of armed guards that made journalists feel secure in the middle of Beirut’s chaos as well as functioning telecommunications.

He added that the hotel also offered financial facilities for journalists who ran out of money. They would borrow money from Nazzal and their companies could pay him back by depositing money in his bank account in London.

Shbaro remembers a terrifying day in the late 1970s when the area of the hotel was heavily shelled and two rooms at the Commodore were hit.

“The hotel was full and all of us, staffers and journalists, spent the night at Le Casbah,” a famous nightclub in the basement of the building, he said.

In quieter times, journalists used to spend the night partying by the pool.

“It was a lifeline for the international media in West Beirut, where journalists filed, ate, slept, and hid from air raids, shelling, and other violence,” said former AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi.

“It gained both fame and notoriety,” she said, speaking from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

The hotel was built in 1943 and kept functioning until 1987 when it was heavily damaged in fighting between Shiite and Druze militiamen at the time. The old Commodore building was later demolished and a new structure was build with an annex and officially opened again for the public in 1996.

But Coco the parrot was no longer at the bar. The bird went missing during the 1987 fighting. Shbaro said it is believed he was taken by one of the gunmen who stormed the hotel.

Features

Key Details of Greenland’s Rich but Largely Untapped Mineral Resources

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
TT
TT

Key Details of Greenland’s Rich but Largely Untapped Mineral Resources

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)

The Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers will meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday after President Donald Trump recently
stepped up threats to take over Greenland.

The autonomous territory of Denmark could be useful for the ​United States because of its strategic location and rich mineral resources. A 2023 survey showed that 25 of 34 minerals deemed "critical raw materials" by the European Commission were found in Greenland.

The extraction of oil and natural gas is banned in Greenland for environmental reasons, while development of its mining sector has been snarled in red tape and opposition from indigenous people.

Below are details of Greenland's main mineral deposits, based on data from its Mineral Resources Authority:

RARE EARTHS
Three of Greenland's biggest deposits are located in the southern province of Gardar.

Companies ‌seeking to ‌develop rare-earth mines are Critical Metals Corp, which bought the ‌Tanbreez ⁠deposit, ​Energy Transition Minerals, ‌whose Kuannersuit project is stalled amid legal disputes, and Neo Performance Materials.

Rare-earth elements are key to permanent magnets used in electric vehicles (EV) and wind turbines.

GRAPHITE
Occurrences of graphite and graphite schist are reported from many localities on the island.
GreenRoc has applied for an exploitation license to develop the Amitsoq graphite project.
Natural graphite is mostly used in EV batteries and steelmaking.

COPPER
According to the Mineral Resources Authority, most copper deposits have drawn only limited exploration campaigns.

Especially interesting are the underexplored areas ⁠in the northeast and center-east of Greenland, it said.

London-listed 80 Mile is seeking to develop the Disko-Nuussuaq deposit, which has ‌copper, nickel, platinum and cobalt.

NICKEL
Traces of nickel accumulations are numerous, ‍according to the Mineral Resources Authority.

Major miner ‍Anglo American was granted an exploration license in western Greenland in 2019 and has ‍been looking for nickel deposits, among others.

ZINC
Zinc is mostly found in the north in a geologic formation that stretches more than 2,500 km (1,550 miles).

Companies have sought to develop the Citronen Fjord zinc and lead project, which had been billed as one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc resources.

GOLD
The most prospective ​areas for gold potential are situated around the Sermiligaarsuk fjord in the country's south.

Amaroq Minerals launched a gold mine last year in Mt Nalunaq in ⁠the Kujalleq Municipality.

DIAMONDS
While most small diamonds and the largest stones are found in the island's west, their presence in other regions may also be significant.

IRON ORE
Deposits are located at Isua in southern West Greenland, at Itilliarsuk in central West Greenland, and in North West Greenland along the Lauge Koch Kyst.

TITANIUM-VANADIUM
Known deposits of titanium and vanadium are in the southwest, the east and south.

Titanium is used for commercial, medical and industrial purposes, while vanadium is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys. The most important industrial vanadium compound, vanadium pentoxide, is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid.

TUNGSTEN
Used for several industrial applications, tungsten is mostly found in the central-east and northeast of the country, with assessed deposits in the south and west.

URANIUM
In 2021, ‌the then-ruling left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party banned uranium mining, effectively halting development of the Kuannersuit rare-earths project, which has uranium as a byproduct.

Features

The West Bank Football Field Slated for Demolition by Israel

Israeli army bulldozers pass buildings during a military operation in Nur Shams refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 12 January 2026. (EPA)
Israeli army bulldozers pass buildings during a military operation in Nur Shams refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 12 January 2026. (EPA)
TT
TT

The West Bank Football Field Slated for Demolition by Israel

Israeli army bulldozers pass buildings during a military operation in Nur Shams refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 12 January 2026. (EPA)
Israeli army bulldozers pass buildings during a military operation in Nur Shams refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 12 January 2026. (EPA)

Israeli authorities have ordered the demolition of a football field in a crowded refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, eliminating one of the few ​spaces where Palestinian children are able to run and play.

"If the field gets demolished, this will destroy our dreams and our future. We cannot play any other place but this field, the camp does not have spaces," said Rital Sarhan, 13, who plays on a girls' soccer team in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.

The Israeli military ‌issued a demolition ‌order for the field on ‌December ⁠31, ​saying ‌it was built illegally in an area that abuts the concrete barrier wall that Israel built in the West Bank.

"Along the security fence, a seizure order and a construction prohibition order are in effect; therefore, the construction in the area was carried out unlawfully," the Israeli military said in a statement.

Mohammad Abu ⁠Srour, an administrator at Aida Youth Center, which manages the field, said the ‌military gave them seven days to demolish ‍the field.

The Israeli military ‍often orders Palestinians to carry out demolitions themselves. If they ‍do not act, the military steps in to destroy the structure in question and then sends the Palestinians a bill for the costs.

According to Abu Srour, Israel's military told residents when delivering ​the demolition order that the football field represented a threat to the separation wall and to Israelis.

"I ⁠do not know how this is possible," he said.

Israeli demolitions have drawn widespread international criticism and coincide with heightened fears among Palestinians of an organized effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel accelerated demolitions in Palestinian refugee camps in early 2025, leading to the displacement of 32,000 residents of camps in the central and northern West Bank.

Human Rights Watch has called the demolitions a war crime. ‌Israel has said they are intended to disrupt militant activity.