SAUDI AUTHORITIES: 'KILL ANYONE WHO GETS IN THE WAY OF THE LINE'
Saudi authorities ordered troops to shoot dead villagers who refused to leave their homes to make way for the construction of a 106-mile-long megacity, an exiled Saudi Arabian intelligence officer has alleged.
Colonel Rabih Alenezi, who has taken refuge in the UK to shelter from retribution, claims at least one villager was killed and several more were imprisoned after declining to give up their land for the futuristic desert city known as 'The Line'.
The gargantuan undertaking is the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman and the centrepiece of NEOM - an ambitious $1 trillion project that seeks to transform the Saudi desert into a new-world eco-city that 'redefines the way people live', diversifying the Kingdom's economy away from oil in the process.
The Line, which will take the form of two mirror-encased skyscrapers extending 106 miles through the desert, is supposed to have a population of one million by 2030 with a long-term capacity of nine million residents.
But Bloomberg reported earlier this year that just 300,000 people are expected to be living there by the end of the decade - and only 1.6 miles of the skyscrapers are likely to have been completed.
Bin Salman has previously said that Saudi's vast desert provides the perfect 'blank canvas' on which to construct The Line.
Computer renders of the project reveal a sight to behold - a pair of enormous metal and glass structures stretching endlessly throughout the sandy plains packed full of futuristic-looking living quarters, shops and gardens, with a brand new marina welcoming vessels from all quarters of the globe.
But Col. Alenezi disputes the claim.
The Colonel said he was tasked with leading a unit to clear several villages to make way for diggers and bulldozers preparing the land for construction in al-Khuraybah, in Saudi Arabia's Tabuk region, in the spring of 2020.
These villages housed thousands of members of the Huwaitat tribe.
Col. Alenezi said the April 2020 order described the Huwaitat as 'rebels' and went on to declare that 'whoever continues to resist [eviction] should be killed, so it licensed the use of lethal force against whoever stayed in their home'.
He said he only managed to avoid carrying out his orders on invented medical grounds, but said the mission went ahead anyway.
One villager, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, was shot dead after refusing to allow authorities to value his home, while hundreds of other villagers were imprisoned.
'Mohamed Bin Salman will let nothing stand in the way of the building of Neom…I started to become more worried about what I might be asked to do to my own people,' he told the BBC.
His claims tally with investigations into the NEOM project conducted by Saudi rights group ALQST, who last year released a dossier publishing their findings.
'Saudi authorities have committed a wide range of serious human rights abuses,' the report stated.
'ALQST's investigation has concluded that to realise this project, Saudi authorities have illegally displaced local tribes without adequate compensation or offering alternative housing, and violently cracked down on members of the tribe who peacefully opposed or resisted eviction.
'Since the notorious killing of local resident Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti in a raid by special forces on his home in 2020, ALQST has documented the arbitrary arrests and unfair trials of other members of the tribe, several of whom have recently been sentenced to lengthy prison terms or even execution.'
MailOnline has contacted NEOM for comment.
NEOM as a whole remains one of the largest and most difficult construction projects in history - the region is set to cover a swathe of desert the size of Belgium - and as such has had its feasibility called into question.
Architect and urban planner Etienne Bou-Abdo said of bold concept images last year: 'The 3D images presented are not classical 3D architecture images', and the designers of the project 'have rather called upon video game designers'.
He stated that the plan includes 'a lot of technology that we don't have today'.
After interviewing 25 employees and reviewing 2,700 pages of internal documents, a Bloomberg report in 2022 said the project had been plagued by setbacks.
Attempts to relocate the indigenous population who have lived at the NEOM site for generations, were reported as being 'turbulent' - with one incident even descending into a gun battle.
There has also been frequent staff turnover, with some former workers describing the vision for NEOM as being 'untethered from reality'.
Several key staff have quit, blaming a toxic work environment and a culture of massive overspending without seeing results.
The construction of some of NEOM's more fanciful elements must now also be balanced alongside other obligations, including building work ahead of the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
Saudi Arabia has a decade to build the necessary stadiums and boost its lodging and transport capacity while also attempting to meet NEOM targets.
Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington said projects tied to specific events would likely be prioritised.
'The Saudis were not going to be able to move 100 miles per hour in every direction on the development front indefinitely,' he said, adding that Riyadh needs consistent, sustainable foreign investment growth from various sectors.
'It's no secret that they haven't achieved that yet.'
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