NAJRAN, Saudi Arabia (AP) – Khatim Umm Salem’s quiet, secure life betrays no signs of the war taking place just a few miles away.
In the mornings, the elderly woman sits in front of a fan outside her tiny shop in the old market of Najran. In the evenings, she listens to the Quran on the radio. She sleeps with the door unlocked, since all her neighbors know her.
When asked about the war, she shrugs and makes a prayer. As a widow, she receives free health care and the little she needs, 1,000 Saudi riyals or $267, from the government each month.
“Sometimes I make a profit, sometimes I don’t,” says the Saudi villager, who does not know how old she is.
Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich nation with about 20 million citizens, is now leading an offensive against the Shiite Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, who are supported by its arch-rival Iran. Yet if not for the huge propaganda posters and the state media, you would never know this was a country at war, in much the same way that life in the United States sometimes seemed distant from the conflict in Iraq.