Video of a Man who is beheaded in Saudi Arabia - Video Dailymotion

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Saudi Arabia punishment by umar-akmalIn the vast deserts of northern Saudi Arabia, close to the borders of Iraq and Kuwait, Exercise Northern Thunder has just concluded. For nearly a month, the kingdom has been hosting forces from 20 allied nations, its first chance to practise integrating the Saudi-led Islamic Coalition announced last year to combat terrorism. This, say the Saudis, is the largest concentration of military forces in the region since the Desert Storm campaign of 1991 drove Iraq's army out of Kuwait. Local media reports quoting figures of 350,000 troops looked to have been somewhat exaggerated. There was little sign of massed formations of infantry and the Saudi general in charge declined to give me a total figure - "the numbers are not important" - suggesting that the actual turnout may have been lower than expected. But the air force component was significant. At King Saud Airbase, near the town on Hafr Al-Batin, I watched squadrons of Egyptian, Jordanian and Bahraini F16 warplanes, along with Qatari Mirage jets, training alongside Saudi Typhoons and F15s. Nearby, Kuwaiti artillery was dug in under camouflage netting, tanks from the UAE rumbled across a sandy valley while Saudi Apache helicopters hovered overhead. "We are testing our infrastructures, our airports, our seaports, our airbases, to make sure we can host such a coalition," Brig Gen Ahmad al-Assiri, Saudi Arabia's chief military spokesman, told me, adding that forces of the Islamic Coalition need to be able to shift from fighting a conventional war to fighting a guerrilla insurgency. Sense of encirclement Many of the countries participating are already having to do just that, such as Mali with al-Qaeda in the north, and Pakistan coping with attacks by the Taliban. But the country feeling most threatened of all is Saudi Arabia. Its forces are fighting a war in Yemen on its southern border, while its air force is deployed to the north attacking the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria, the group that has already carried out several bombings inside Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are also starting to feel encircled by proxy militias of their arch rival, Iran, with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Shia militias in Iraq and the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen. So can Saudi Arabia fight on two fronts, in Yemen and in Syria? I put the question to Gen al-Assiri. "I know it is exhausting in a matter of resources, in a matter of people," he says. "Today we face challenges in the south and our forces are stretched in the north and deployed since 2014. This is why - because we feel that our national security is in danger." Air strikes criticism This twin campaign has come at a difficult time for the world's second biggest oil producer and exporter. Oil prices have dropped by more than 60% from their highs, resulting in budget shortfalls and a nationwide cutback in contracts and hiring. The Yemen war is draining Saudi coffers at an alarming rate, but there is another factor the leadership in Riyadh must contend with: the mounting international opposition to its air strikes in Yemen, where an estimated 6,000 people have been killed by the past 12 months of war