The State Department was little help on this, or on much else about Saudi Arabia.

In February 2006, Angola surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the number one supplier of oil to China.

Azerbaijan currently has diplomatic relations with 160 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Republic of India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

* Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

* 2005 – President of Mauritania Maaouya Ould Sid ' Ahmed Taya is overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.

* 1980 – Saudia Flight 163, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar burns after making an emergency landing at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 301 people.

The world of Arab music has long been dominated by Cairo, a cultural center, though musical innovation and regional styles abound from Morocco to Saudi Arabia.

Omari came from Asir Province, a poor region in southwestern Saudi Arabia that borders Yemen, and graduated with honours from high school, attained a degree from the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, was married, and had a daughter.

He is alleged to have often served as an Imam at his mosque in Saudi Arabia and is believed by American Authorities to have been a student of a Saudi cleric named Sulayman al Alwan, whose mosque is located in Al-Qassim Province.

A man with the same name as those given by the FBI turned up alive in Saudi Arabia, saying that he had studied at the University of Denver and his passport was stolen there in 1995.

* Amputation is used as a legal punishment in a number of countries, among them Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Islamic regions of Nigeria.

Born in Saudi Arabia, Nami had served as a muezzin and was a college student.

Nami, much like Abdulaziz al-Omari, Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, and Mohand al-Shehri was born in the ' Asir Province in Saudi Arabia.

Born to the Quraish tribe of Saudi Arabia, Nami served as a muezzin at the Seqeley mosque after having reportedly become very religious sometime in early 1999.

By October he had taken a prospective hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia where they both procured B-1 / B-2 tourist / business visas on October 28 – but Hamlan then decided not to proceed and is thought to have returned to his family.

In mid-November 2000, the 9 / 11 Commission believes that Nami, Wail and Waleed al-Shehri, all of whom had obtained their U. S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran where they could travel through to Afghanistan without getting their passports stamped.

This probably followed their return to Saudi Arabia to get " clean " passports.

Ahmed al-Haznawi was the son of a Saudi imam from the Al-Bahah province, which is located in an isolated and underdeveloped part of Saudi Arabia.

On November 12, 2000, Haznawi applied for and received a two-year US B-1 / B-2 ( tourist / business ) visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

From November 27, 2000 through December 27, 2000, Haznawi was in Saudi Arabia for Ramadan.

In Saudi Arabia, eating in public during the daytime is prohibited during the Muslim month of Ramadan.

In Saudi Arabia, all businesses except hospitals are made to close during Islamic prayers, held five times daily.

Saudi Arabia has provided enormous financial assistance to Bosnia-Herzegovina since its independence in 1992.

** Arabia: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria and Tunisia.

193-Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, People's Republic of China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Côte d ' Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, North Korea, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

It is known to exist in northern Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan, northern Iraq ( Kurdistan ), and Nicholas Birch of the The Christian Science Monitor claims there is circumstantial evidence for its existence in Syria, western Iran, and southern Turkey.

The only known source of the Safaitic language, a form of proto-Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia.

The All-Palestine Government was quickly recognized by six of the then seven members of the Arab League: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, but not by Transjordan.

The desert zone, an area lying west and southwest of the Euphrates River, is a part of the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert, which covers sections of Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and most of the Arabian Peninsula.

border countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, Jordan

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and others were among the countries that supported Kuwait in the UN coalition.

Jordan is situated geographically in Southwest Asia, south of Syria, west of Iraq northwest of Saudi Arabia and east of Israel and the West Bank ; politically, the area has also been referred to in the West as the Middle or Near East.

Jordan's boundaries with Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia do not have the special significance that the border with Israel does ; these borders have not always hampered tribal nomads in their movements, yet for a few groups borders did separate them from traditional grazing areas and delimited by a series of agreements between the United Kingdom and the government of what eventually became Saudi Arabia ) was first formally defined in the Hadda Agreement of 1925.

Countries pictured ( clockwise from upper left ) are Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt ( across the Gulf of Aqabah ), Israel, and the disputed West Bank, with Jordan in the center.

Iraq 181 km, Israel 238 km, Saudi Arabia 728 km, Syria 375 km, West Bank 97 km

:: international: satellite earth stations-3 Intelsat, 1 Arabsat, and 29 land and maritime Inmarsat terminals ; fiber-optic cable to Saudi Arabia and microwave radio relay link with Egypt and Syria ; connection to international submarine cable FLAG ( Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe ); participant in MEDARABTEL ; international links total about 4, 000.

This includes some foreign-owned ships registered here as a flag of convenience: Australia 4, Austria 6, Bangladesh 1, Belgium 3, Bulgaria 19, Canada 2, China 16, Croatia 14, Cuba 1, Cyprus 7, Denmark 3, Estonia 5, Finland 1, Germany 54, Greece 627, Hong Kong 12, Iceland 3, India 10, Iran 2, Israel 26, Italy 36, Japan 2, Latvia 24, Lebanon 6, Monaco 29, Netherlands 10, Nigeria 2, Norway 43, Poland 29, Portugal 2, Romania 15, Russia 85, Saudi Arabia 1, Slovenia 2, South Korea 5, Spain 1, Switzerland 54, Syria 4, Turkey 84, Ukraine 25, United Arab Emirates 3, United Kingdom 4, United States 10 ( 2002 est.

* 1948 – Following the demise of the British Mandate of Palestine, Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Engagements since 1979 have included the Islamic uprising in Syria ( 1979 – 82 ), notably including the Hama Massacre, the 1982 Lebanon War ( against Israel ), and the despatch of the 9th Armoured Division to Saudi Arabia in 1990-91, ahead of the 2.

In 1989, Syria endorsed the Charter of National Reconciliation, or " Taif Accord ", a comprehensive plan for ending the Lebanese conflict negotiated under the auspices of Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco.

Relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia have become severed due to Saudi Arabia's support for the rebels and their support for the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power.

Saudi Arabia has also closed its embassy in Syria.

Qatar along with Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait have closed their embassies in Syria.

Accordingly, the U. S. and a group of allies, including countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria and Czechoslovakia, deployed a massive amount of troops along the Saudi border with Kuwait and Iraq in order to encircle the Iraqi army, the largest in the Middle East.

The UNCCD has 194 country Parties: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Côte d ' Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe