Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. IMAGE: SPA
On October 24, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described the killing of Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi as a “heinous crime” and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, in his first remarks on the issue.
“This was a very, very painful incident for all Saudis and also for everybody on this planet … Saudi Arabia will go and implement all necessary rules and investigate deeply in order to achieve results. And to bring to justice those who are responsible for this heinous crime, and they will be put before courts,” bin Salman said during his speech at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, according to the CNN TV.
Furthermore, bin Salman said that the killing of Khashoggi will not derail the kingdom’s reform drive and praised the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the issue.
“We will prove to the world that the two governments (Saudi and Turkish) are cooperating to punish any criminal, any culprit and at the end justice will prevail,” the Reuters news agency quoted bin Salman as saying.
Khashoggi, who is a columnist for the Washington Post, went missing on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul. Two weeks later, Saudi Arabia acknowledged that Khashoggi was murdered during what was described as a “quarrel and a brawl” with personnel he met in the consulate. The Saudi Public Prosecution detained 18 suspect, while many senior officials were sacked by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was supposed to reveal sensitive information about the killing of Khashoggi on October 22. However, he only said that the crime was “pre-planned.” This allowed some experts to speculate that Turkey is using its information about the crime as a bargaining chip with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
On the same time, the US limited its response to the unprecedented assasination by formal statements and a visa ban for 21 Saudi ctiziens. In fact, by this very limited response, Washington demonstrated its support to the Saudi actions.
This Saudi ape has only two tireless defenders; the US and Israel. That’s all we need to know.
I hope Kashoggi’s son gets the honour of gutting the terrorist, bin Salman. Will be richly deserved.
Kashoggi and his family are part of the evil cia terror entreprise. They are western intelligence prostitutes…all of them. Read up on Adnan Kashoggi a bit…
Something else interested me, Erdogan said something along the lines of the saudis are not good guardians of the holy sites. Anyome else catch that?? Would that not be a huge insult to the house of saud??
Ill lead the charge on that front.
Hey saudis, you guys are a disgrace to islam. You do israel dirty work and finance terror world wide at america’s bidding, facilitating the deaths of muslims around the world …some guardian you are.
Erdogan wishes to resurrect the Ottoman Empire. The Muslims Turks were the protectors of the holy sites for over five hundred years and thus er-dog-an wishes to regain that cachet for the Turks.
News update: 5 of the 18 detained have perished when their transport bus crashed and immediately burst into flames. Just kidding, or maybe not. :D
MbS is right, it was his highness crime. And indeed the perpetrators will pay, that is, MbS will slap himself with a $100 fine to be paid to Trump’s campaign coffers in Monopoly money – Trump will appreciate as he likes the choo choos on each bill.
MbS swears he will be from now on a more humble and law ignoring Crown Prince and will never order Assassinations in future… that delegate the task to Saudi agents… recognizing his need to go outside the Kingdom to find a team competent enough to get it done right.
MbS having put the fiasco behind him, travels to Istanbul to thank Erdogan profusely for his kind understanding not to throw him to the sharks, a kindness that miraculously filled Erdogans heart just as his bank account filled with Saudi funds (and not Monopoly money).
MbS, a bit sore from his ordeal prostate on the floor before Erdogan, hurries over to the Turkish Consulate while he wipes the boot heel marks from the back of his neck.
MbS in the spirit of business and commerce is to christen the newly named Consulate (and new business venture) as ‘Incompetence House’ consulting and consulate. This in recognition that they clued into something and that was there core competency is incompetence. In fact no one comes close to KSA when it comes to incompetence. The consulting business is sure to make billions – to buy US weapons to give to the Houthis
Haha.Had me laughing.
If MBS is guilty of this maniacal depravity, and there are a lot of indications that he is, what is he having done to prisoners in Saudi Arabia?
While this murder was certainly crude and barbaric, where is the world’s condemnation of Israel? There are dozens, if not hundreds of unarmed demonstrators who’ve not only had their legs deliberately broken by the IDF, but have had them amputated as well. And these horrific crimes are happening on an almost daily basis and have been for months. While the two faced NATO governments look the other way and say and do nothing.
MBS stands for Mister Bone Saw.
I can’t think of a better reason to support sanctions and attacks on Saudi Arabia than what its ally, Israel, does to human beings. The Zionist Entity and the Jewish menace must be destroyed.
Everything in this case very neatly points to MbS. Why would they order a murder in a consulate? Couldn’t they access him outside it? They did it before, it’s not the first time they murder someone in a foreign country, from Naji Ali (the Palestinian cartoonist which I have no doubt many of you would recognize his work, because of Handala. If you don’t remember, search and you’d instantly realize) to daily killings in Yemen. Everybody knows that consulates and embassies are being watched everywhere. The double (something fishy about it, they could perfectly reproduce the hair, why they didn’t?), carrying a bone saw through the airport? They can’t find this kind of equipment in Turkey and need to carry it and gave away a documentation via airport’s X-rays? Claiming the CCTV in the consulate doesn’t work, it’s always a dead give away that something’s wrong when cameras don’t work. Presence of MbS closest persons in the hit team and many other “mistakes”, all pointing to a single person. Too perfect.
Don’t get me wrong, I think MbS is the embodiment of cruelty, stupidity, impulsiveness with a giant ego and outright evil. I’m not defending him and if this results in his replacement I’d be happy that someone somewhere did something about it. But I’m beginning to think it was not him that ordered the murder. Remember, the one who are the loudest now, were absolutely quiet when Saudis’ crimes in Yemen became apparent. West still doesn’t want to stop arms flow to Saudis, Journalist and media kept quiet and are still quiet about crimes in Yemen and Palestine, so everything they say about “justice” is bull. They want something else.
PS. Have you noticed we know nothing about Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s “fiance”? So do his own family and friends! All I know is she speaks Arabic well and is an “expert” on Oman.
Another explanation is that the Saudis weren’t planning on getting caught red handed. Either through incompetence, like using Skype for the shake down, and not realizing that the victims watch was a recording device. To a more high tech possibility like being able to see and hear through walls without have physical bugs inside.
It’s a consulate RicharD, a disappearance there is guaranteed to be known.
I also don’t buy the “Apple watch” story. If we accept the “decoy” plotline, they took his cloths off AND his watch before spilling any blood and ruining the cloth, it’s impossible that they didn’t notice. More so, Apple Watch cloud doesn’t work in Turkey, unless connected to an Apple iPhone. If you have access to both, measure the max distance that both devices stay connected. I’d say not enough from where the “fiance” with his iPhone stood.
https://www.apple.com/watch/cellular/
I think the watch is a Turkish invention because they can’t say we bugged the consulate or tapped their phones, Geneva convention and all. Edit: Another possibility is that there was an insider in the Saudi consulate who recorded it all on a different device and passed the file. The insider couldn’t use Khashoggi’s own watch after removing it from his wrist because it locks upon removing and needs a pass code.
There’s information that a lot of communication devices can be accessed and used for recording with surveillance technology designed for that purpose without the active participation or knowledge of the surveilled.
The Saudis are incompetent at everything they do, except bribery. That they do very well. Which is why its not raining down cruise missiles on them, but wait and see. So them pulling this amateur stunt in the most clumsy Monty Pythonesque way seems in character. I do think you have a point that everything ties to neatly and that the ferocity of the previously silent political and journalist classes does hint at a concerted ploy to get rid of MBS.
But if that were true, how bad would that be for everyone? This could be one of those cases where MBS toppling for power would be win-win for everyone. The US and Israel may like his stance against Iran, but maybe even MBS is just too plain much of a loose cannon for them?
Toppling MbS is not bad at all, I said I’d be happy if that happens unless someone worse takes his place. How can be someone worse than him? By having his personality traits plus cunning and not being impulsive.
Saudis seem clumsy in most of the things they do. If you’re familiar with their culture, it has a very simple explanation: Most cultures value work and the sweat of the brow but not Saudis (it’s an Arab thing mostly, Arab means someone from the Arabian peninsula, not Arabic speaking). For a higher class Saudi working (and specially manual labour or being someone else’s employee is shameful), staying in a line is shameful and social class differences is a very real thing. A man of higher status can routinely insult the ones of lower (mother and sister insults are very popular) and it’s normal, you can always determine the status of people in a conversation just by listening the way they talk to each other, there’s no Political Correctness or social politeness involved. It’s so rampant that even their pilots don’t participate in training classes, a servant or a lower officer with a recorder takes their place as a place holder, and a Saudi national, not of the poor class never personally goes to do his own paperwork. In a business meeting only the boss talks, and if an employee addresses them or answers a question without being directly ordered to is considered an insult.
This results in clumsiness in most parts, but not intelligence work. That’s an entirely different matter. These guys managed to disrupt Chechnya, Xinjiang, Baluchistan, Myanmar, Philippines and ruin Syria (the early days of 2011 until emergence of ISIS). Despite all their evil-doing they managed to stay the custodians of the most sacred Islamic places so far, which gives them the most part of their influence in the Muslim world. Don’t underestimate them. They had help, granted, but they can create real problems and being wealthy makes them more dangerous (it can translate to bribery which you covered). The incompetence of Saudis and amazing performance of Turks as we see in Khashoggi case is a puzzle, nobody is that clumsy and no murder case solves that easily.
Great post, which makes me wonder, if no Saudi can be arsed to do any actual work, why does their intelligence services work? What makes these guys do any actual work?
No Saudi of higher classes. There are still plenty of people that work but mostly as shopkeepers, small business and such. And serving the powerful (specially the king, Sultan, Emir, etc) is an honour and by serving I don’t mean cleaning after them. Age also plays an important part in relations, after social status and wealth.
Workers are almost totally foreigners and also the positions which require management and planning, but in this case a Saudi poses and pretends he’s doing all the work and takes the credit but the actual work is done by a foreigner with a-not-so-attractive title.
A sad truth about Saudis (rulers) is they don’t trust their own, unless they’re from the same tribe and family tree (saudi royal family is consisted of 4 main family branches competing with each other). The bond between them is stronger than the temptation of money, but compensations are always welcomed. It means you can’t buy a Saudi national who serves a powerful Saudi and both are from the same tribe, they pride themselves by being loyal and their loyalty is also rewarded handsomely.
Their intelligence apparatus (Mabahis -GSS, internal- and Istikhbarat -GIP, foreign-, 2 organizations established in the ’50s) are mostly comprised of foreigners from all over the world. Don’t look at the window dressings, the boss is always a Saudi. There are interesting facts about Saudi intelligence agencies. In a country where women don’t have any rights to drive and work, their intelligence hires the women, the ones who know a couple of languages! They are among the most patient intelligence organizations in the world, never in hurry. Considering the fact that almost all of “Islamic” (nothing Islamic about them, everything they do is against core teachings of Islam) terror groups are created/funded by them, they have a vast network of informants and operatives all around the world. They almost always know when a terror attack is about to happen, no matter they back this attack or are against it (like Boston Marathon bombing 2013, Istikhbarat informed the US government about the danger of possible bombing by 2 brothers, but the US didn’t take it seriously, or did they?). Hajj pilgrims also help them to gather information about millions of Muslims.
Their intelligence is nothing extra-ordinary but at the same time, it shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s very vast, hundreds of thousands of employees and It worked well so far for them, but the same concepts which made it work (loyalty, extreme secretiveness, fear of progress) are now starting to hurt it by preventing injection of fresh blood into system for the fear of betrayal and the youth ideas.
There’s a book named “Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region” by Cordesman and an Arab co-author which helps to have an idea about this matter.
Well reasoned. Arghh re the Sauds.
Why didnt the sauds get mossad or cia help in this kill fest?
https://thesaker.is/insights-into-the-khashoggi-ordeal-who-and-why/
This offers some interesting speculation.
I still find this story ridiculous…the msm uproar over this is a disgrace…no one ever thinks of yemen. Why would msm be so upset…that a cia operative got whacked in a botched intel deal.
Some of us are hoping MBS gets replaced…careful what you wish for…who is to say the next usa/israel puppet wont be even worst.
Thank you for the link. The article doesn’t address the simplest of possibilities: A plot to shuffle Saudi line of succession and a change of facade.
Ghassan Kadi speculates all things about the “fiance”, well I think it would be better to research her, not speculate.
A very important matter is also not addressed: Why Khashoggi didn’t do the paperwork in the Saudi embassy is the US? We are being told that the Saudi ambassador to the US (Khalid bS, MbS’s brother and his natural successor if something happens, told him to go to Istanbul). He knew it’s dangerous for him to go to Saudi soil, why didn’t he instruct the “fiance” that if I didn’t return within an hour or so, call the police or whatever? Maybe he did, but she waited nearly 12 hours which gave plenty of time for the plot to work.
I also find it very uncharacteristic of Saudis not accusing Iran of having a hand in it. Maybe they would do, if the situation with the west wasn’t so dire.
Most important question: Who benefits? I think we should wait to see if MbS is replaced as a result or not. His brother is more controllable, I have no doubt.
For the last part of your comment, see the first part of my reply to @Barba_Papa:disqus.
Interesting about the twelve hours. The story was that the fiancee ,who is obviously a turk,had heard everything from his apple watch.maybe she went in hiding for twelve hours and the story was that the moment it happened he somehow got a signal out to her that meant he was going to be murdered in there.
Also ,we hear she was an expert on Yemen . Was she a Turkish intelligence plant? Of course, he could have done it in The USA -based Saud consulate. My take ? Kushner ,trump soninlaw sold him out to the sauds and has his dirty fingers in the whole thing.
Cengiz is obviously Turkish. Bone saw? Easy to make on site. Do not need to take through an airport at all.mbs salman is definitely behind it and turkey is offerring to cover him if it gets concessions from Saud and USA. Dirty politics from the three of four dirtiest political circles. Only Israel is missing so far from the group.
Khassogi was an extremist Moslem pig. Fcucjk him! Yet the Sauds,Turks and Yankees are all guilty of worse crimes.
Changing your name to Heinous won’t save you dude.
MBS declaring this murder a heinous crime and vowing to bring the murderers to justice is like Hitler shedding tears over the holocaust and vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice. Or Stalin shedding tears over his purges? Mao and Pol Pot for basically trying to kill everyone? Che Guevara for the people he personally killed as camp commandant in Cuba?
Man is this soap fun to watch. The sheer stupidity of this murder, the sheer audacity of Trump and other Western leaders trying their utmost NOT to do anything to punish Saudi Arabia for it. Irony so thick you can scoop it up and not just serve it in an ice cream cone, but make a whole irony ice cream cake out of it.
The only way to know the truth is to extradite the 18 arrested from Saudi Arabia, take them to the Hague in a prison where they do not risk ending up like Giulio Regeni and have them speak freely. Even their family members should be rescued abroad. Khashoggi’s son who has had to shake hands with his father’s murderer can not get away from Saudi Arabia and knows that he can be killed at any moment.
Laughable, he is the vile and heinous creep, he even listen on the phone to the screams of Khashoggi while he was cut into 15 pieces.
The cruelty of Turks and Arabs is proverbial!