Topic: Prince Bandar bin Sultan

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan was removed from his position as Chief of General Intelligence on Tuesday following a royal decree.

Russia's discussions with Egypt on a $3 billion arms deal underlines a major drive by Moscow to boost arms sales in the Middle East as it strives to upgrade its once powerful defense industry with a 10-year, $755 billion spending program.

Pakistan to transfer nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia for cash and cheap oil while the army edges to center stage to head off the Talibanization of its political life.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel toured the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf last week reassuring them the United States is not abandoning them while seeking a rapprochement with Iran, their main rival, and one way to do that is make available advanced weapons systems that have long been withheld.

The assassination Tuesday of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut has sharply heightened sectarian tensions in Lebanon, already aggravated by the civil war in neighboring Syria that has become the main battleground in a 1,400-year-old schism in Islam.

U.S. and European defense companies, hard hit at home by shrinking military budgets, are battling to make big-ticket sales in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf monarchies, whose collective defense spending grew by 20 percent in 2011-12.

Saudi Arabia, disillusioned with its longtime U.S. ally over the failure to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad, is reported to be seeking to form its own rebel army to overthrow the Damascus regime backed by Riyadh's rival Iran.

The next big battle shaping up in Syria's civil war will be for control of the Qalamoun Mountains in the west of the country.

Saudi Arabia, exasperated with U.S. vacillation over Syria's chemical arsenal and now its effort to reconcile with Iran, Riyadh's foremost adversary, is forging a new alliance of Islamist rebels in Syria under a pro-Saudi warlord to supersede the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.

Saudi Arabian security authorities have escalated a smoldering feud with regional rival Iran by rounding up influential Shiite clerics and intellectuals for questioning following the March arrest of 18 people on charges of spying for Tehran.