--- title: "Whistleblower Says Saudi Arabia Told Operatives It’s Okay to Kill Villagers to Build 105-Mile Skyscraper" description: "Ex-intelligence officer Rabih Alenezi told the BBC that Saudi forces were given green light to use lethal force to clear land for The Line." date: "2024-05-09" modified: "2024-05-09" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/whistleblower-saudi-arabia-kill-villagers-build-105-mile-skyscraper" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "Human Rights" - "mohammed bin salman" - "neom" - "Saudi Arabia" - "the digest" - "the line" --- # Whistleblower Says Saudi Arabia Told Operatives It’s Okay to Kill Villagers to Build 105-Mile Skyscraper ![Ex-intelligence officer Rabih Alenezi told the BBC that Saudi forces were given green light to use lethal force to clear land for The Line.]() *\Image: Neom\* ## Crossing the Line Saudi Arabia is working on a comically colossal skyscraper, called "The Line," that aims to stretch across 105 miles of desert and tower over the Empire State Building. And that's only one part of an even greater ambition, the world's largest construction project simply called "Neom." Unsurprisingly, The Line is [already turning out to be a hot mess](), with architects struggling to finalize designs, while the foundations are already being built. Besides getting a reality check, the project — led by the [journalist-mulching]() Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — is also already mired in human rights abuses. Ex-intelligence officer Rabih Alenezi, who has been living in exile in the UK since last year, [told the *BBC*]() that Saudi forces were given the green light to use lethal force to clear land for the sprawling construction site. Alenezi claims that he was told to move a nearby village, resulting in a protester getting shot and killed — serious allegations that highlight a worrying cost to Saudi Arabia's megalomaniac city project. ## Clearing Land At first, The Line was meant to be a car-free city that measured 650 feet wide and 105 miles long. But [projections suggest]() the Neom project could end up costing a whopping $2 trillion, four times the initial budget. And only 1.5 miles of The Line will reportedly be built by 2030, instead of ten miles. While The Line's path largely passes through uninhabited desert, more than 6,000 people still had to be moved, according to the Saudi government. UK-based human rights group ALQST, however, believes that number to be [in the tens of thousands](). According to satellite images analyzed by the *BBC*, three villages have already been demolished, including schools and hospitals. Alenezi told the broadcaster he was instructed to clear a town called al-Khuraybah three miles south of The Line. A man called Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti reportedly refused to give up his land and was shot dead by Saudi authorities, who later claimed that he had opened fire on them first. ALQST claims that 40 people remain in detention, including five who are on death row. Other international contractors from the UK and the US that have since pulled out of the project also told the *BBC* they were appalled by the reports of residents being forcefully evicted. While the broadcaster was unable to independently verify Alenezi's claims, they nonetheless paint a worrying picture of the human cost of constructing a 105-mile skyscraper — even when it's being built in the middle of a desert. **More on The Line:** *[Saudi Arabia Discovers It's Hard to Build a 105-Mile Skyscraper]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()