Free Republic

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi officials have firmly warned the United States in recent days that an Israeli ground incursion into the Gaza Strip could be catastrophic for the Middle East.Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Armed Services Committee, was one of 10 senators who met last weekend with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.“The Saudi leadership was hopeful that a ground operation could be avoided for reasons of stability as well as the loss of life,” Blumenthal told The New York Times on Thursday. Saudi officials warned it...

The Biden administration has determined that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, should be granted immunity in a case brought against him by the fiancée of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom the administration has said was murdered at the prince’s direction. A court filing was made by Justice Department lawyers at the request of the State Department because bin Salman was recently made the Saudi prime minister and as a result, qualifies for immunity as a foreign head of government, the request said. It was filed late Thursday night, just before the court’s deadline for the Justice Department...

The Biden administration told a U.S. court that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s status as a sitting head of government shields him from a civil lawsuit brought by the fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. Khashoggi, a former royal insider who criticized Prince Mohammed’s policies in Washington Post columns, was killed in 2018 and his body dismembered by Saudi agents during a visit to the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate where he was seeking papers needed to marry Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen. In a filing Thursday, the State Department said “common law principles of immunity” informed its determination...

President Biden accused Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister of lying when he contradicted the president’s claim that had raised the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and bristled when asked about the fist bump with the royal. Returning early Sunday morning to the White House after his four-day trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, Biden was asked whether A​del al-Jubier was telling the truth when he said he didn’t hear the president bring up Khashoggi with the prince, commonly referred to as MBS. “No,” Biden responded bluntly, according to a White House pool report. The president,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his team are headed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week for talks ... Kushner’s trip comes after the killing on Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran... Days before the killing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia and met with bin Salman, an Israeli official said, in what was the first publicly confirmed visit by an Israeli leader. Israeli media said they were joined by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The historic meeting underlined how opposition to Tehran is bringing about a strategic realignment of countries...

The mobile phone of billionaire Jeff Bezos was reportedly hacked during a conversation between the Amazon founder and Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the WhatsApp messaging service, according to reports. Bezos was allegedly hacked in May 2018 after receiving an encrypted message from the personal account of the crown prince -- which is believed to have included a hostile file containing code that led to the infiltration of his phone, a digital forensic analysis said. It was "highly probable" the infiltration was triggered by the infected file sent to The Washington Post owner, according to the Guardian. It was...

The mysterious flight between the two nations had many asking "Whodunnit?" A privately owned, unidentified Challenger 604 jet departed from Ben-Gurion International Airport, landing first in the Jordanian capital of Amman and then in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Tuesday evening, causing many to question which Israeli decided to pay the Saudis a visit. The plane in question departed from Israel and flew to an airport in Amman, where it remained on the ground for about two minutes before taking off again and landing in the Saudi capital. After a little less than an hour, the plane, privately...

Saudi authorities on Saturday released billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, people familiar with the matter said, more than two months after he was detained in a widespread crackdown on corruption in the kingdom. Prince al-Waleed is already at his house in Riyadh and is expected to resume his business activities as normal, two people said. The 62-year-old prince was one of dozens of royals, senior government officials and businesspeople rounded up in early November, a wave of arrests the Saudi government billed as the first volley in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s campaign against graft but which was also seen...

CAIRO - Egypt’s Christians are optimistic following the first Coptic mass in Saudi Arabia. Dozens of Coptic Christians attended the mass at a tourist facility in Riyadh. The mass, Egypt’s Christians said, reflects the tremendous changes happening in Saudi Arabia. “It even portends more change in that great country in the future,” said Father Polis Halim, spokesman of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church. “Saudi Arabia is showing an admirable degree of tolerance that gives us a lot of hope.” The story began in May when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz visited Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in...

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday reportedly insisted that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman include international experts as part of an ongoing investigation into the death of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A French official said the two leaders discussed Khashoggi’s murder during a five-minute exchange that took place on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentina, where they also talked about the need to find a solution to the situation in Yemen, Reuters reported. The Saudi Gazette newspaper shared a clip of the brief exchange. In one part of the clip, the crown prince can be heard telling...

Turks and Saudis have been enemies for centuries. Now the Khashoggi investigation has rekindled their fierce rivalry—and may upend the politics of the Middle East. Two centuries ago, in the fall of 1818, the Saudi monarch was brought to Istanbul in chains. He was displayed in a cage to the cheering crowds outside the Hagia Sophia mosque, and then, amid celebratory fireworks, his head was chopped off. This gruesome episode in the shared history of Turkey and Saudi Arabia hasn’t been mentioned in public as the two countries have clashed over the Oct. 2 killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal...

A story broke last week that an Arabic journalist named Jamal Khashoggi who was working for the Washington Post had disappeared and was presumed dead. The official story is that Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on the afternoon of October 2. Immediately (and suspiciously) media stories that appeared to be coordinated appeared, pointing the finger of blame for Khashoggi’s disappearance at Saudi Arabia, in general, and at the country’s Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Salman, in particular. It was alleged by anonymous sources for several days that Khashoggi had been abducted and then killed at...

A delegation from Saudi Arabia has arrived in Turkey... Prince Khaled al-Faisal, the governor of Mecca, made his brief visit in his capacity as special adviser to King Salman, indicating that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is treating the issue as a priority. Later the same day Turkey said the two countries had agreed to form a joint working (effort) to investigate the situation…

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Goes After the Bin Ladens The kingdom’s business leaders apparently realize they’d better work with Mohammed bin Salman lest they lose the rest of their whittled-down holdings Zvi Bar'el Jun 05, 2018 12:31 PM Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman isn’t about to rest on his laurels. First he reached accords with several dozen of Saudi Arabia’s richest men, including ministers and family members. They were arrested in November and held until they agreed to part with significant chunks of their wealth, which freed them from their luxurious captivity in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton. And now the...

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the 32-year-old media-savvy leader of the oil kingdom, has been unnaturally quiet recently, so much so that some in the Middle East media couldn’t help but wonder if he is dead. Bin Salman hasn’t been seen in the public eye since his meeting with the Spanish royal family in on April 12. On April 21, heavy gunfire was heard near a royal palace in Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital. ...

Saudi Arabia's Google talks prove Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is the most powerful leader in the Middle East Google and Amazon are reportedly in advanced talks with Saudi Arabia to build a tech hub in that country. This is the result of seven months of swift reforms in Saudi Arabia that began under Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. It's not only proof that bin Salman's reforms have worked, but also that he is now the most powerful man in the entire Middle East. Jake Novak | @jakejakeny Published 4:09 PM ET Thu, 1 Feb 2018 Updated 5:14 PM ET...

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the actual buyer of a painting by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci that sold for a record-breaking $450 million at auction last month, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The young crown prince, known by his initials MBS, used an intermediary to buy the much-sought-after painting of Christ, 'Salvator Mundi', the newspaper reported, citing US intelligence and other unnamed sources. The son of Saudi King Salman is seen to be progressively consolidating his power, and is the architect of a wide-ranging plan dubbed Vision 2030 to bring social and economic change to his...

Saudis Are Hoping Mohammed bin Salman Will Drain the Swamp A road trip among ordinary Saudis revealed high hopes, and hardly any worries, about the country's new political era. BY STEVEN A. COOK | NOVEMBER 21, 2017, 12:46 PM We must be doing 80 miles per hour on a rutted road outside the northwestern Saudi town of Ula. It is late and I am tired, but I’ve got one eye on the road and one eye on the dashboard indicator light signaling that the Chevy Tahoe in which I am traveling has low tire pressure. What would happen if this...

The next Saudi King Crown Prince Muhammad and Israel agree that Iran is the biggest threat to the region, but Israel’s top soldier rules out initiating an attack on Hizballah. Two London publications on the same day shed unusual light on the next chapter in Saud royal history, as well as on the hitherto semi-clandestine ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem. Daily Mail, quoting “a source close to the Saudi royal family” reported that King Salman, 91, intends to give up the throne next week and name his son, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, 32 as his successor. The king will...

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince could turn to Credit Suisse next Saudis are among a number of SWFs intrigued by recent shareholder developments at Swiss bank PATRICK JENKINS For those who had not been paying attention to the rise of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, his recent dramatic detention of fellow princes and other senior figures over corruption allegations came out of the blue. But amid some pretty tough competition for the world’s attention — a quasi-coup in Zimbabwe, more Brexit tumult — he has kept up the momentum ever since. On Thursday it emerged that the Saudi authorities...