The director of Saudi Arabia’s General intelligence agency, Khalid Bin Ali Al Humaidan, paid surprise visits to Ramallah and Jerusalem on Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 21-22. Neither Palestinian nor Israeli officials have confirmed that the visit took place.
Last week, DEBKA Weekly carried an exclusive report that Iranian engineers were working round the clock on a project dubbed “Riyadh First,” for adding an extra 100km to the intermediate range of the Scud-C (600km) and Scud-D (700km) surface missiles, to enable them to reach the Saudi capital and explode in the center of Riyadh.
The project, which is going forward at the Al Ghadi base in Big Ganesh, 48km west or Tehran, was ordered by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.
This plan was behind the threat made by IRGC Air Force Commander Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh on Saturday, Feb. 11, at the start of an Iranian military exercise: “Should the enemy make a mistake, our roaring missiles will rain down on them,” he said.
Gen. Hajizadeh, who is in charge of the missile testing site, ordered all other work halted in order to concentrate on the fast-track “Riyadh First” Scud development project.
On Feb. 4, Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthis fired a missile which they claimed was a homemade Borkan with a range of 800km into Saudi Arabia. It struck the al-Mazahimiyah military camp west of Riyadh.
According to our military sources, the Houthis don’t possess a missile of that range. Their attack was in fact the first test of the newly-extended Iranian Scud, as a dress rehearsal for the real strike.
If the visit by the Saudi spy chief is confirmed, he will have come for several missions. In Ramallah, he would have warned the Palestinians not to go through with their bid to strengthen direct ties with Tehran (which was first revealed by DEBKAfile on Feb. 13). The first meeting of Iranian and Palestinian delegations has already taken place in Brussels.
In Jerusalem, Al-Huymaidan may have explored security issues related to the US-Israeli-Arab regional conference proposed by US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when they met in Washington on Feb. 15.
DEBKAfile’s sources note that the Saudi spy chief is a professional soldier and the first commoner to hold the post of Director of Saudi General Intelligence. Among his predecessors were high-ranking princes such as Bandar Bin Sultan, Turki Bin Faisal and Muqrin Bin Abdul Aziz.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.