1. Southwest Asia 2 aka “Arabia” Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain

2. Fertile Crescent

3. Yemen, well, 1970s

7. Yemen

9. Yemen’s Hadramawt Valley

10. Yemen’s Hadramawt Valley

11. Yemeni Lighthouses

13. Sana'a, Yemen

14. Yemeni Perched Hamlet

15. Western Yemen

16. Coffee roaster

17. Yemeni Dagger (jambiya) Shop

18. Dates

19. Spices and khat chewers

20. Khat

22. USS Cole attack, 10/2000

23. Alleged USS Cole Mastermind Charged
Pentagon says Guantanamo Detainee met with Bin Laden, Purchased boat and explosives
ABC News By LUIS MARTINEZ and THERESA COOK WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008
The Pentagon has charged a Guantanamo Bay detainee with planning and participating in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
The Pentagon has charged Saudi 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri with planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen. Al-Nashiri is in custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
The U.S. military claims that Saudi 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri masterminded the plot in which two men appearing to be civilians piloted their small boat toward the Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen, and detonated explosives hidden inside the vessel.
The attack killed 17 sailors, wounded another 47 and left a 40-foot hole in the side of the ship.
The charges say al-Nashiri met with Osama bin Laden to reorganize and plot the Cole attack after a similar plot against the USS the Sullivans failed in January 2000.
Al-Nashiri allegedly made arrangements to rent homes near the gulf for surveillance, purchased the small boat and explosives used in the attack, and assigned the two men who apparently carried out the bombing.
The charges also implicate al-Nashiri in an October 2002 attack on a French oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, which killed one of the ship's crewmembers and caused the spillage of an estimated 90,000 barrels of oil.
The US dropped the charges against Al Nashiri in 2009, he remains in Gitmo

24. Bab el Mandeb, a vital choke point between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean

25. Port at Aden, Yemen

26. Saudi Arabia

27. Died 2015

28. 1/15/08

29. No, no don’t bow, dowh!

30. Read the article

32. Al Kab’a (Kabbah) Mecca (Makkah) in the Hejaz of Saudi Arabia
Al Kab’a (Kabbah) Mecca (Makkah) in the Hejaz of Saudi Arabia. One of the five pillars of Islam is the hajj to Mecca. This modern complex was built by the bin Laden company. Read: The bin Ladens by Steve Coll.

33. Al Kab’a. What’s in there?

34. Kab’a, Mecca

35. Saudi Arabia, ~1957 Nigel Allen’s photo shows half an Arab with a western-style jacket, an irrigation ditch to make the desert bloom, a crop, the desert, and a 55 Chevy. Why is that there? Because American oil companies found the oil.

36. Riyadh modern buildings

37. Bahrain

38. US 5th Fleet stationed in eastern Bahrain

39. Sunrise at the Pearl Roundabout, Bahrain Theresa Jackson’s photo, ~2009

40. Sundown for the Pearl & Bahrain, 2011

41. Al Burj, Dubai

42. Dubai, UAE 1960s

43. Dubai, 21st century

45. Dubai, UAE

47. Hatta Mountains Dubai

48. Dubai, UAE, artificial islands

52. Qaboos, the good Sultan of Oman

53. Sultan’s Palace, Muscat Oman

54. Muscat, Oman south of the Strait of Hormuz

55. Salalah, Oman, site of a Chinese container port