Public smiles, private problems as Saudi prince visits White House
AFP/File / NICHOLAS KAMMUS President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- shown here at the White House in 2017 -- will meet there again on Tuesday
Saudi Arabia's young crown prince heads to the White House Tuesday, looking to underscore his grip on power and ensure that several emerging points of friction don't threaten a burgeoning alliance with Donald Trump.
In front of the cameras, it will be all back-slapping, handshakes, smiles and warm words.
This is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's first visit to the Oval Office since the 32-year-old cemented his role as the kingdom's de facto political leader and embarked on economic and social reforms long sought by the west.
His reformist message and the promise of Saudi investment in the United States has endeared him to the neophyte US president -- 39 years his elder -- and America's own political princeling Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.
Trump and MBS -- as he is known in Washington's corridors of power -- have seen eye-to-eye on concerns about Iran's military activism, Middle East peace, relaxing Saudi Arabia's deeply conservative laws and over their love for big ticket mega-investments.
"While the crown prince is in Washington, we'll be advocating for $35 billion in commercial deals for US companies that would support 120,000 American jobs and advance Saudi Arabia's economic reform agenda," a senior US administration official said.
- Ripples in the pond -
But an all-out PR campaign designed to burnish the crown prince's image, and declarations that "relations have never been better," mask several problems that could spoil the honeymoon.
As Prince Mohammed arrived in Washington, word trickled out that Saudi Aramco -- the kingdom's energy behemoth -- was cooling on the idea of a stock listing in New York, something Trump has publicly lobbied for.
The news was accompanied by expressions of concern about a US law that exposes Saudi Arabia to legal action over the 9/11 attacks, which Riyadh would dearly like to see removed.
AFP/File / Fayez NureldineSaudi state oil giant Aramco may abandon plans for a New York stock listing over concerns that the country remains open to US litigation in connection with the 9/11 attacks
"The Trump administration will not be able to offer the necessary guarantees on any changes to US law that would reassure Saudi Arabia and the IPO is simply too important to place in jeopardy," said Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy.
Another point of friction is the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia leads a coalition fighting the Huthi rebels, who are allegedly backed by Iran.
That devastating two-year-old conflict was an early proving ground for the prince, then the minister of defense, but it has been beset by atrocities against civilians and strategic drift.
Just hours after the prince leaves the White House, Congress will vote on rules designed to withdraw US intelligence and reconnaissance support for the war.
The measures may not pass, but are designed as a clear warning to the White House against signing a blank check.
Trump is also expected to press his guest to end a standoff with Qatar, which has wrecked Gulf Cooperation Council unity and put the US president's plans for a US-Gulf summit at Camp David in doubt.
But the most delicate discussions could be about Saudi Arabia's nuclear program, which is mooted as civilian-focused but could quickly become a platform for building a weapon.
"Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible," he told CBS television in a recent interview.
Saudi Arabia's nuclear program is "a massive contract that also has massive geopolitical implications," according to the Soufan Group, another political consultancy.
"Letting the deal go through without the prohibitions (on nuclear weapons) would be potentially disastrous," the group said.
But if these niggles turn into full disputes, it is likely to be only behind closed doors.
In advance of the trip, officials announced a monthly American, Saudi, and Emirati forum to discuss issues of strategic importance and hailed the strength of the relationship.
"The president's meeting with the crown prince" one US official said, "is a tremendous opportunity to make progress on a range of issues and strengthen these bilateral relations."
After his visit to Washington, Prince Mohammed will embark on a nationwide tour, visiting New York, Boston, oil hub Houston, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. He is expected to remain in the United States through the first week of April.
Syria forces battle to secure Damascus
AFP / STRCivilians walk past Syrian army tanks on the main square of the Eastern Ghouta town of Kfar Batna on March 19, 2018 following its recapture from rebel fighters
Syrian regime and allied forces battled to suppress the last pockets of resistance in and around Damascus Tuesday, while the beleaguered Kurds in the north braced for further Turkish advances.
The simultaneous assaults have sparked one of the worst humanitarian emergencies since the start of the Syrian conflict seven years ago, with aid groups struggling to gain access to the masses of displaced civilians.
Washington has voiced concern that the chaos in Syria could allow a revival of the Islamic State group, whose "caliphate" collapsed late last year after three years of international military operations.
The jihadists launched a surprise nighttime attack in a southern neighbourhood of Damascus, moving into the vacuum left by a deal that saw a rival armed group pull out exactly a week ago.
"IS took full control of Qadam, and 36 government troops and loyalist fighters have been killed," reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
There was no immediate comment from the regime, nor could the Britain-based monitoring group provide casualty figures for the jihadists.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the regime was sending reinforcements to retake Qadam, which was attacked from the adjacent IS-controlled neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad.
The jihadists also have a presence in the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk.
- Hospital horrors -
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has brought swathes of territory back under his control, with help from Russia and allied forces, including Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
AFP / HAMZA AL-AJWEHA Syrian boy tries to put out a fire in the rubble of buildings in the rebel-held town of Eastern Ghouta flattened by air strikes on March 19, 2018
He has recently focused efforts on flushing out the last pockets that escape government control in and around the capital, the largest of them being Eastern Ghouta.
A month-long air and ground assault on the area, which was home to around 400,000 residents, has left more than 1,400 dead.
Regime and allied forces have retaken more than 80 percent of the enclave and splintered its rump into three pockets, each controlled by different rebel groups.
Clashes shook the various zones on Tuesday, with air strikes killing at least seven civilians, the Observatory said.
One area includes the largest town of Douma, where an AFP correspondent reported heavy bombardment through the night that left ambulances struggling to reach the wounded.
At the town's main hospital, exhausted staff worked on extracting a shard of wood from the head of a 10-year-old girl.
A man walked the facility's halls with a sack. Medics said it held the human remains of a loved one killed in raids.
A trickle of medical evacuations was expected to take place Tuesday for the seventh straight day.
Tens of thousands of civilians have fled both the intense bombardment of Ghouta and the deprivations of a siege that lasted five years.
- 'Pervasive war crimes' -
The ramifications are catastrophic, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein told the Security Council.
"The siege of Eastern Ghouta by the Syrian Government forces, half a decade long, has involved pervasive war crimes, the use of chemical weaponry, enforced starvation as a weapon of warfare, and the denial of essential and life-saving aid -- culminating in the current relentless, month-long bombardment of hundreds of thousands of terrified, trapped civilians," Hussein said Monday.
But he also warned of another humanitarian catastrophe unfolding hundreds of kilometres (miles) to the north in the Syrian border enclave of Afrin.
The Turkish army and its Syrian proxies -- a motley assortment of jihadists, former rebels and members of other armed groups -- seized Afrin from Kurdish forces on Sunday.
Turkish military police deployed across the city on Tuesday, as some civilians tried to return to homes and shops looted by Ankara's Syrian proxies.
The two-month offensive displaced around 100,000 people, most of them to the town of Tal Rifaat further east, the UN has said.
AFP / OMAR HAJ KADOURCivilians flee the Syrian Kurdish city of Afrin any way they can as Turkish troops and their Syrian Arab allies overrun it on March 18, 2018
On Tuesday, a convoy carrying food, blankets, and other aid was being delivered to thousands of families seeking refuge in Tal Rifaat, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The capture of Afrin, one the cantons in the self-proclaimed autonomous administration run by Syria's Kurds, has been a huge blow to the minority.
Resentment runs high among the Kurds over the lack of Western support for their fighters, who spearheaded the US-led coalition's efforts against IS for more than three years.
The People's Protection Units (YPG) Kurdish militia redeployed some of its units from desert areas in the east where they had been battling remnant jihadists to join the defence of Afrin.
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the Afrin battle had distracted from the fight against IS, which she said had begun "reconstituting in some areas".
"This is a serious and growing concern," she warned on Monday.
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