Word: obaid
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Saudis, in particular, are alarmed at Iran's spreading influence in Lebanon. "There has been a serious increase in [Iranian and Syrian] activity in the rearming of HIzballah," says Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security advisor who is managing director of the Riyadh-based Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a consulting group that advises the Saudi government. Obaid contends that "a huge stream of trucks" has been crossing the border from Syria into Lebanon, ferrying thinly disguised shipments of arms...
...Moreover, Obaid says, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are using the Iranian embassies in Damascus and Beirut as command and control centers, an allegation that was also confirmed to TIME by Israeli military sources. Obaid says there appear to be direct communications links between the Iranians and Hizballah, via Hizballah officers working inside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, and Iranian officers in the field with Hizballah fighters; in the past, some Middle East analysts have rejected the popular notion that Hizballah takes direct orders from Iran...
...Saudi officials believe that the kingdom's support will far surpass the amount Iran provides Hizballah and will enable Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to ride out the group's grab for influence. "You have to empower the Lebanese government so that it can reconstruct the country," says Nawaf Obaid, head of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, which advises the Saudi government. "Iran and Hizballah will be the losers in the long...
...peace breaking out as U.S. troops leave. Allies in the region believe that a U.S. withdrawal would suck the steam out of the insurgency, but it may already be too late to prevent the breakup of Iraq. Some Saudi officials don't believe the situation is salvageable, says Nawaf Obaid, director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, which has prepared a classified study of Iraq for the Riyadh government. "As much as the Americans are trying to put a positive face on it," says Obaid, "it is highly unlikely that Iraq will emerge as a unified state...
...Afghan-Iranian border and negotiated his surrender over three days. U.S. officials doubt al-Harbi has a great deal of useful information. "He was a confidant and spiritual sounding board for bin Laden," says one, but no al-Qaeda operative. The Saudis are more optimistic. Saudi security analyst Nawaf Obaid tells TIME that al-Harbi, who is cooperating, was a "very successful recruiter" for al-Qaeda and could have the goods on as many as 100 Saudis he is thought to have enticed into bin Laden's service...