Riyadh Announces Khashoggi’s Death, Pledges to Punish Criminals

[Ceylal]

Trump took his cut..Waiting for Erdogan’s...

 

[Taskforce]

look mate i dont know who are you. why are you hiding your id. gulenists were nato's gladio organization . Turkish Army and Turkish people smashed them in 16 July Coup .if you trust to your power go and fight against MB . dont complaint in hear.This is last msg for you

I’m hiding my ID? What do you mean? I’m hiding my ID as much as you since I don’t see you with your real name on this forum. Perhaps you should go on YouTube and look videos how AKPians were defending Gulen when people like my attacked Gulen.

 

[tesla]

I’m hiding my ID? What do you mean? I’m hiding my ID as much as you since I don’t see you with your real name on this forum. Perhaps you should go on YouTube and look videos how AKPians were defending Gulen when people like my attacked Gulen.

i can not seen your flag. are you from which country and why are you hiding your flag

 

[xenon54 out]

 

[Taskforce]

i can not seen your flag. are you from which country and why are you hiding your flag

I’m not hiding anything. I never had an option to select flags. What I’m thinking is this: how can somebody who uses the name Tesla be so backward.

 

[T-123456]

I’m not hiding anything. I never had an option to select flags. What I’m thinking is this: how can somebody who uses the name Tesla be so backward.

Are you Turkish?

 

[T-Rex]

Are you Turkish?

He's a backward crypto wahabi claiming to be as 'progressive' as MBS.

 

[somebozo]

Saudi has always been politically repressive but not so much as it has becoming under MBS - a new Saddam emerging. Even during its worst era of King Fahad rule - people did not fear their life to write criticism about government in national news papers. Saudi never used assassination and as much as assassination on foreign soil as a state policy. The worst to come upon dissidents was house arrest or VIP prisons. This is the first time in Saudi history that the state has stooped so low to actually engage in murder at one of its own consulates overseas.

Also never in Saudi history, a crown prince has yielded so much power as it does now. Saudi is looking like a perfect case headed towards new Iraq of Saddam in the making.

Since this is a free forum and Saudi Arabia no longer honors free speech, Saudi posters should be careful on voicing their opinions for their own safety.

 

[Taskforce]

Are you Turkish?

Yes.

 

[somebozo]

and the clean up begins..

ONE of the alleged “hit squad” behind the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has reportedly been killed in a “suspicious” car accident.

Meshal Saad M Albostani, a lieutenant in the Saudi Royal Air Force, is said to have been killed in a car accident in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

He is among a group of men wanted for questioning after Khashoggi went missing having entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago, reports The Sun.

Turkish pro-government news organisation, Yeni Safak, which carried the report of the crash, claims there are now fears he “could have been silenced”.


https://www.news.com.au/world/middl...t/news-story/8009970e0aaa947ce4da89637326a917

 

[Ceylal]

It was an accident..the sword screws gave in..

 

[Meengla]

Saudi has always been politically repressive but not so much as it has becoming under MBS - a new Saddam emerging. Even during its worst era of King Fahad rule - people did not fear their life to write criticism about government in national news papers. Saudi never used assassination and as much as assassination on foreign soil as a state policy. The worst to come upon dissidents was house arrest or VIP prisons. This is the first time in Saudi history that the state has stooped so low to actually engage in murder at one of its own consulates overseas.

Also never in Saudi history, a crown prince has yielded so much power as it does now. Saudi is looking like a perfect case headed towards new Iraq of Saddam in the making.

Since this is a free forum and Saudi Arabia no longer honors free speech, Saudi posters should be careful on voicing their opinions for their own safety.

Good post.
You know all it takes is ONE mistake and miscalculation to plunge a nation into chaos and ruin. Saddam miscalculated by misreading American response and attacked Kuwait. Somalia's Siad Barre--who had done reasonably well for his country--went on an adventure to claim (or reclaim) Somali territory from Ethiopia by launching a war--bringing disaster to Somalia...

But, for Pakistan, stability in the Middle East, especially in KSA, is extremely important. It would be best that the situation de-escalates, MBS removed from his position and punished and more rational heir takes the role instead.

Having said that--just about ALL leaders in the Middle East are whackos or lack imagination for regional peace--and that includes even Turkey.

 

[Max]

First return the body at least.

 

[Taskforce]

First return the body at least.

His body has already dissolved in acid somewhere in basement but if you want they can give the liquid.

 

[somebozo]

The full story of why MbS might have wanted Jamal Khashoggi dead

Said al-Arabi

The full story of why MbS might have wanted Jamal Khashoggi dead
Khashoggi's disappearance ordered by MbS and executed by his inner circle [Getty]

Date of publication: 17 October, 2018

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• Khashoggi, MbS, Saudi consulate, Yemen war, Washington Post
  
  This was not a straightforward snatch and grab attempt. The officers sent to Istanbul to deal with Jamal Khashoggi were given clear instructions; return with Khashoggi alive or kill him there.
  That order did not come from any senior general or bureaucrat, but straight from the de-facto head of the largest Royal family in the world that controls the world's largest proven oil reserves.
  
  It came from the last remaining bastion of medieval court politics, ironically supported by the seemingly unstoppable tide of global populism.
  
  A giant of a man yet with an approachable demeanour, Jamal Khashoggi had an intimidating contact list that included leaders, politicians, businessmen and, what would help lead to his tragic death, the numbers of some of the most senior members of the House of Saud.
  
  Khashoggi was the go-to man for almost every Western journalist looking for a quick soundbite from a reliable source on Saudi Arabia and think-tankers and academics curious about popular Saudi reactions to Western policies.
  
  When he decided to move into self-exile, Khashoggi told his closest friends he wasn't a person who could stand jail or torture. As the list of friends and acquiantances in jail grew, the more relieved Khashoggi was of his escape.
  
  During his exile, he became increasingly lonely. Early on his wife at the time, under pressure from the unabated traditional and new media onslaught against him (directed by the sinister royal advisor Saud al-Qahtani), requested a divorce and a broken-hearted Jamal acquiesced. He later described it as one of the worst moments he ever experienced.
  
  Having forced a rupture in Jamal's life, the powers in Riyadh assumed that they had neutralised one of the key public figures who had threatened them, simply by being independent.
  
  Yet neither the divorce nor his exile prevented Jamal from continuing to seek new ways to deliver his message.
  
  Indeed, in his work with The Washington Post, he pursued writing with a new vigour, often smiling wryly as he read the online threats and insults from Saudi government trolls and their systematic campaigns. In one answer to them, Jamal talked about how sad he was at their existence. History will vindicate those jailed and tortured while it would ignore these trolls entirely, he tweeted.
  
  Read more: MbS: Getting away with murder?
  
  The wrathful princeling
  
  The inner peace that Jamal found infuriated and enraged the rash and impulsive Mohammed bin Salman. Surrounded by a coterie of aggressive, eager to please loyalists with little experience, his anger reached untold limits.
  
  With an almost chronic addiction to social media, the crown prince would scour the virtual newsfeeds daily on his iPad, to examine first-hand the impact of the campaigns engineered by his adviser.
  
  With all the resources that eight million barrels of oil a day bring, being unable to stop Khashoggi's influence was a constant reminder of the limits of authoritarianism against unrestricted freedom.
  
  Greater anger still was channeled against the Saudi people; ludicrous TV shows made outlandish claims about any independent figure on social media and spent hours devoted to playing up MbS' genius, vision and appeal. He was at once a prince, a visionary, a conservative defender of the faith, a liberal, a westernised prince who was pro-Israel and an anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian defender of human rights. Daring to question this biography was simply a fatal thing to do.
  
  Having publicly humiliated and demoted the strongest royal in the kingdom to become crown prince, MbS had effectively wiped out all opposition within the family. And with a list of disgruntled Saudi royals courtesy of Jared Kushner, he was able to target every one of them, removing them from public posts, scaring them into fleeing or imprisoning them in what was the greatest protection racket in history.
  
  No transparency or oversight was given to what happened, resulting in an environment of fear that prompted hundreds of businessmen untouched by the Ritz affair to make voluntary transfers of tens of millions of dollars to stay out of his way.
  
  
  
  Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, brother of King Salman, issued unprecedented criticism of the war in Yemen led by MbS
  
  
  Disgruntled royals
  
  Yet some royals escaped. Chief among them was Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. The last of the Sudairi Seven, he was a long serving deputy minister of interior tasked with dealing with the intricate workings of the tribal system and appeasing the tribes. In late August 2018, Ahmad made an unplanned interaction on the steps of a hotel in London to an unsuspecting Bahraini activist.
  
  Implicitly criticising the crown prince and his bloody foray in Yemen, the video went viral in seconds when it was released. A shocked royal court took over a day to release a weakly worded statement on behalf of Prince Ahmed affirming his unrelenting loyalty to the king and the crown prince.
  
  This didn't help dissuade millions of Saudis who had previously heard about Ahmed's angry insistence months back on removing MbS' picture at a domestic airline lounge he was flying from. There was no way, Ahmed was reported to have said, that I'm leaving this lounge until that boy's picture is removed.
  
  Despite being known for his calm temperament like many of his generation's royals, Ahmed was appalled at the destructive nature of MbS' policies and his recklessness. Now in London, he was going against the very characteristics he has been known for all his life and thinking of how to try and effect a change in the power structure.
  
  Read more: Saudi king's brother condemns war in Yemen, blames crown prince for devastating conflict
  
  Jamal Khashoggi knew this. He had also heard similar messages from other discontent and frustrated members of the Royal family too. While it spoke volumes about his agreeable nature, it also sometimes was a curse that senior royals liked to sound off to him.
  
  
  
  As Khashoggi gained influence in the US press, the phone calls from royals started pouring in
  
  
  A mortal threat and a gruesome murder
  
  Khashoggi was someone who straddled many of the social contradictions of Saudi Arabia. He was a middle-class, educated Hijazi who had good relations with Najdis.
  
  He was entirely moderate and pluralistic in his outlook yet understood extremist narratives and managed to engage with them. Jamal was just at ease sitting on the floor of a tent or a mosque as he would be in a Louis Xiii armchair in a grand mansion. He was never judgemental and always had a great story to tell over a cigar and above all was as trustworthy as they come. And so the phone calls began. As his profile in America increased, more and more princes reached out to him.
  
  There are other Saudi royals out there, less in seniority to Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, yet also sons and nephews of kings. It is their reaching out to Jamal, relayed to MbS by fawning apparatchiks, that created an incendiary environment which led to that death warrant.
  
  Members of MbS' personal elite squad - Al-Ajrab Sword Brigade - began working with colleagues from the General Intelligence service and forensic experts to plan their move.
  
  As soon as reports came from the consulate in Turkey that he had come in to ask for divorce papers, Riyadh set things in motion. He was told to come back after a week in which all logistics were planned out and overseen by MbS and his advisers. Alive or dead, finishing within an hour was imperative.
  
  
  
  Alive or dead, finishing within an hour was imperative
  
  
  On the fateful day in which Jamal entered the Saudi consulate, an unsuspecting consul, more at home stamping visas and chain smoking into the night in Istanbul's cafes, was given a rude awakening as a team of officials entered the consulate with a royal authorisation to access all areas.
  
  
  The New Arab
  
  ✔@The_NewArab
  https://twitter.com/The_NewArab/status/1052338549012537346
  
  US senator Lindsey Graham accuses 'wrecking ball' Saudi crown prince of ordering Khashoggi's murder https://trib.al/ZKiEOjA
  
  4:20 AM - Oct 17, 2018
  
  US senator Lindsey Graham accuses 'wrecking ball' Saudi crown prince of ordering Khashoggi's murder
  Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican close to President Trump, said...
  
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  Not imagining what would happen next, the confused bureaucrat spent minutes making small talk with Jamal until MbS' operatives officers came into the office and asked Jamal to come with them.
  
  Khashoggi saw his worst fears materialise.
  
  Recordings point to a near hysterical man trying to flee while shouting for help, but to no avail. While his drugging could have killed him immediately, this came after a struggle and he died as the shell-shocked consul general looked on.
  
  With a 6 foot 2 body weighing 105 kilos on the floor needing shifting, the team moved to another gruesome part of their plan - and it is here that the brutally sadistic nature of MbS comes into the world's view - the dismembering of Jamal's body.
  
  As his fiancee suffered a public, online breakdown and hundreds of his western friends sought answers, a belligerent and manic royal court directed its online armies and media anchors to create and then fight a Turkish-Qatari-Islamist conspiracy against Saudi Arabia.
  
  No mention was made of the murder. No attempt was made at answering legitimate questions about Jamal's whereabouts. A vicious mccarthyist campaign hunted down everyone who asked questions, everyone who spoke highly of Jamal and, in what was a despicable low for MbS Saudi Arabia, anyone who didn't speak up against Jamal or this fictitious conspiracy. Fellow journalists in Saudi Arabia whether out of hate or fear never even asked where he was, preferring to promote this obsessive regime propaganda agenda.
  
  Privately, the crown prince and his henchmen huddled tight desperately trying to work their way out of the tangled mess they wove. Not for a minute did they dream of the level of global outcry against their crime.
  
  So large and sustained, the outcry managed to infiltrate their tight barriers to reach the king himself. The foreign and information ministries had nothing to give the growing calls for answers from the world's media and politicians. They doubled down on their 'defence' of the kingdom narrative bombarding a nervous and worried Saudi public with rabid anti-Turkish and anti-Qatari content, constantly ramming the idea that 'the kingdom is at war'.
  
  Now, with Trump yielding slightly to pressure on the hill and Pompeo's visit, it might well lead to a grudging acceptance of Jamal's fate in the embassy.
  
  But this admittance will be the conclusion of much trilateral bargaining primarily over contracts and financial support. The Saudis will have created another almighty mess which only their thick black oil can cover.
  
  
  *Said al-Arabi is a pseudonym. The author, who has close links to many of the people named in this article, resides in a jurisdiction where the publication of their identity may create a security or freedom of movement issue.
  
  Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

The New Arab & agencies

Saudi FM says Riyadh doesn't know where Khashoggi's body is
Adel al-Jubeir said the kingdom did not know where the body of Khashoggi was. [Getty]

Date of publication: 21 October, 2018

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• Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi, Mohammed bin Salman
  
  Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Sunday the kingdom did not know where the body of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi was, despite admitting to the killing and calling it a "tremendous mistake."
  
  Speaking in an interview on Fox News, Jubeir said the Saudi leadership initially believed Khashoggi had left its consulate in Istanbul, where he was last seen on 2 October.
  
  But following "reports we were getting from Turkey," Saudi authorities began an investigation, which discovered he was killed in the diplomatic mission.
  
  "We don't know, in terms of details, how. We don't know where the body is," Jubeir said, adding that the Saudi public prosecutor had put out orders to detain 18 individuals, "the first step in a long journey."
  
  He termed the killing a "tremendous mistake" but one which the US-Saudi relationship would eventually overcome.
  
  
  "That is unacceptable in any government. These things unfortunately happen. We want to make sure that those who are responsible are punished and we want to make sure we have procedures in place to prevent it from happening again."
  
  Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Khashoggi vanished on 2 October after entering the consulate to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage.
  
  After a fortnight of denials, Saudi authorities admitted on Saturday that Khashoggi, a prominent critic of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after entering the consulate in Turkey on 2 October.
  
  But it has faced a growing chorus of incredulity over its belated explanation that he died in a "brawl", as world powers demand answers and the whereabouts of his body.
  
  British and French officials denounced the latest Saudi explanation as insufficient. Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said the Saudi version lacked "consistency and credibility."
  
  Several senior members of Trump's Republican Party, meanwhile, said they believed Prince Mohammed bin Salman was linked to the killing, and one called for a "collective" Western response if a link is proved.
  
  US senator Rand Paul said on Sunday that the crown prince should be "replaced", calling Riyadh's explanation of Jamal Khashoggi's death "insulting".
  
  Earlier, Democrat senator Dick Durbin said that Mohammed bin Salman "has his fingerprints all over" Khashoggi's death, while Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the crown prince has "now crossed a line and there has to be a punishment and a price paid for that."
  

Saudi crown prince 'phoned Khashoggi at the consulate right before he was killed'

The New Arab

Saudi crown prince 'phoned Khashoggi at the consulate right before he was killed'
The Saudi narrative of the killing has been met with scepticism [Getty]

Date of publication: 21 October, 2018

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• Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi, MbS.
  
  
  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly spoke on the phone with journalist Jamal Khashoggi moments before he was murdered in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.
  
  Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Safak revealed new alleged details of the case in a report on Sunday, contradicting claims by Saudi authorities that Prince Mohammed played no part in Khashoggi's murder.
  
  "Khashoggi was detained by the Saudi team inside the consulate building. Then Prince Mohammed contacted Khashoggi by phone and tried to convince him to return to Riyadh," the report said.
  
  "Khashoggi refused Prince Mohammed's offer out of fear he would be arrested and killed if he returned. The assassination team then killed Khashoggi after the conversation ended," it added.
  
  While it is difficult to verify the source of this information, Turkish pro-government media have been receiving a steady stream of leaks many of which turned out to be accurate, including pictures of the hit team as they entered Turkey and reports of audio recordings of the murder said to be in the possession of Turkish authorities.
  
  Saudi authorities conceded Saturday that Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and a Riyadh critic, was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul diplomatic compound following a "brawl".
  
  Their admission came after a fortnight of denials with the insistence that the journalist left the consulate alive.
  
  The Saudi narrative of the killing has been met with scepticism and condemnation from the international community.
  
  On October 5, Prince Mohammed told Bloomberg that Khashoggi was not inside the consulate and "we are ready to welcome the Turkish government to go and search our premises".
  
  The kingdom has fired five top officials and arrested 18 others in an investigation into the killing - a move that has widely been viewed as an attempt to cover up the crown prince's role in the murder.
  
  Several senior members of US President Donald Trump's Republican Party said they believed Prince Mohammed was linked to the killing, and one called for a "collective" Western response if a link is proved.
  
  "Obviously there's been deception and there's been lies," Trump said on the shifting accounts offered by Riyadh.