Mecca and Medina ISIS Ultimate Prizes: Newsweek
Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:48:29
The recent early morning clash between a Saudi border patrol and extremists trying to enter Saudi Arabia from Iraq appears to be the latest indicator of the so-called Islamic State’s (ISIS) intent to expand its influence and control from its stronghold in Syria and Iraq south into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the rest of the Persian Gulf where there is oil and what ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his followers would consider the ultimate prizes: the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, William Young a senior policy at Rand Corporation wrote in Newsweek.