DUBAI — Saudi Arabia, self-appointed guardian of Sunni Islam, is deeply wary of popular uprisings that have convulsed the Arab world, but it has lost patience with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s violent attempts to crush a mainly Sunni protest movement.
But until this week Saudi King Abdullah had kept silent on the violence in Syria, which human rights groups say has cost more than 1,600 civilian lives in five months of turmoil.
Saudi-Syrian relations were rarely warm, with Riyadh riled by Syria’s alliance with its Shi’ite regional rival Iran, and they chilled further after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, a friend of the Saudi royal family.
