Image Credit: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images 
At a moment much of the globe and international media has its entire focus on the Russian war in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia on Saturday carried out a mass execution of 81 people for a wide range of what state sources called “terrorism” related crimes.
The executed individuals – which is being reported as likely by beheading – were deemed “guilty of committing multiple heinous crimes that left a large number of civilians and law enforcement officers dead,” according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Some of the individuals killed appear to be linked to the ongoing war in neighboring Yemen, which the United Nations has for the past two years labeled as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
According to The Hill, based on Saudi official sources, “Specific crimes of the individuals included: membership in terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Houthi rebels of Yemen; targeting Saudi residents; traveling to regional conflict zones to join terrorist organizations; targeting members of the Saudi government; killing and maiming law enforcement officers; and targeting police vehicles with land mines.”
“The Kingdom will continue to take a strict and unwavering stance against terrorism and extremist ideologies that threaten the stability of the entire world,” the Agency added in announcing the executions.
According to ABC News and other Western press outlets this marks the single largest mass execution ever recorded in the kingdom:
“Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history,” the report said.
“The number of executed surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever militant attack to target the kingdom and Islam’s holiest site,” ABC described of the prior record.