Yemen in the News, Finally!

Editor

It may sound cruel but there is a silver lining to Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder. As gory details of his murder have emerged, scrutiny of broader Saudi policies including the long festering war on Yemen has intensified.

This is particularly noticeable in the US where both the media and some members of Congress have raised concerns. There are even calls to suspend arm sales to the Saudi regime amid its atrocious human rights record. Donald Trump has so far refused to stop arm sales but the Saudis’ atrocious conduct has been exposed.

True, the Saudi regime has spent tens of million of dollars on lobbying firms to peddle its interests. In many instances, Congressional members have received large donations at the very time when their vote was needed to advance the Saudi geostrategic position.

The Khashoggi episode, however, has shined such a harsh light on Saudi misdemeanors that even some of the most diehard lobbyists have recoiled in horror and distanced themselves from the Bedouins of Najd. Calls in Congress about Saudi war crimes in Yemen have also grown louder amid concerns that it would affect American officials as well, making them complicit.

The United Nation’s latest estimate is that at least 8.4 million people in Yemen are on the verge of starvation. More than 50,000 children have died as a result of Saudi bombings as well as of the siege preventing desperately needed medicines and food from reaching the desperate people. It is finally being reported.

Iranian President: S. Arabia Emboldened by US to Kill Khashoggi

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemned Riyadh for brutal murdering of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi, stressing that the crime could not happen without the US support.

"No one imagined that the today world and the new century would witness such an organized crime and a system that plans for such a brutal killing and I do not think that the country dared to commit such a crime without the US support," President Rouhani said, addressing a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

He added that the Yemeni people are also being bombed by the Saudi-led coalition amid the global silence with Washington's support.

President Rouhani called on the Turkish government to carry out impartial and precise investigations into Khashoggi's case, describing the world states' position on the issue as a big test of their respect for human rights.

"We should see the reaction of those countries which claim to be advocates of human rights," he added.

Alluding to the US officials' mellow reaction to Khashoggi's case, President Rouhani said, "Today, the world people do not know if they should believe your slogans in support for human rights or your declaration that you are not ready to opine on the case for $450bln (the US-Saudi deals and contracts)."

After two weeks denying involvement in his disappearance, Saudi Arabia said early on Saturday that Khashoggi, a critic of bin Salman, had died in a fight inside the building.

Within hours a senior Saudi official told Reuters that a team of 15 Saudi nationals sent to confront Khashoggi had threatened him with being drugged and kidnapped and then killed him in a chokehold when he resisted.

Then on Sunday Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said that while he did not know exactly how Khashoggi had died, his killing was a “rogue operation” in which Saudi individuals had exceeded their authority.

An adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday dismissed a Saudi assertion that Khashoggi died in a fight in the kingdom’s Istanbul’s consulate, one of several accounts of the journalist’s disappearance to have emerged from Riyadh.

“One cannot help but wonder how there could have been a ‘fistfight’ between 15 young expert fighters ... and a 60-year-old Khashoggi, alone and defenseless,” Yasin Aktay wrote in a column in Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak.

“It explains no aspect of the incident according to all the information reached - on the contrary, it leads to even more questions,” Aktay, who is also a close friend of Khashoggi, noted.

“The more one thinks about it, the more it feels like our intelligence is being mocked,” he wrote.

Also on Tuesday, Erdogan stated that the killing of Khashoggi inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul was "planned" and “brutal” murder, asking Riyadh to extradite the 18 arrested suspects to Turkey to face justice for the crime.

Addressing the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Erdogan stated that Saudi officials had planned the assassination of Khashoggi days before he was killed in Istanbul in early October, revealing that all information, evidence revealed so far shows that Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal, premeditated murder.

Confirming that a 15-man Saudi team took part in the incident, he said "a Saudi team of three people landed in Istanbul one day before Khashoggi's killing and visited forests in Istanbul and Yalova. Two other teams arrived at the consulate separately".

"Saudi consulate cameras were removed and all footage was deleted from hard drives. Camera footage shows Khashoggi did not leave the consulate. This is a political murder," he said.

“The Saudi authorities have taken an important step confirming the killing and now we ask Saudi authorities to work hard to reveal the names of those involved, from the bottom to the top,” Erdogan added.

“There are also questions in every mind; why did those 15 people gather in Istanbul on the day they committed the crime and … according to instructions given to them by whom? We need to know," the Turkish leader stressed.

"Evidence shows Khashoggi's killing was a result of a planned operation. Why was the team assembled in Istanbul? Who gave the instruction for them to assemble? Why wasn't the consulate open to the investigation until many days later? Why were conflicting statements made? Where is the body of a person who was admittedly murdered? We need answers," he asked.

Erdogan demanded Riyadh reveal the identity of the "local cooperator" who purportedly took the body, calling on Saudi Arabia's government to "permit Khashoggi killing suspects to be tried in Istanbul".

"My demand is that 18 people be tried in Istanbul," he said, adding that "all those who played a role in the murder" had to face punishment.

Offering condolences to the family and relatives of Khashoggi, the Turkish president expressed confidence that Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud would cooperate with the investigation, declaring that he does not doubt the king's sincerity.

Khashoggi Episode: The Trap Door Beneath Saudi Arabia Swings Open

TEHRAN (FNA)- The world community is rejecting Saudi Arabia's explanation of how journalist Jamal Khashoggi died in its consulate in Istanbul.

European governments are also reacting cautiously. London says it's considering its "next steps." Prime Minister Theresa May has long been under pressure to suspend its own arms sales to the regime over the illegal war on Yemen.

Turkey - where Khashoggi was killed, says it won't permit a cover up and its ruling party also questioned the Saudi version of events. Others aren’t letting go of this too.

This is because Saudi Arabia’s belated, incomplete and highly silly explanation for the death of Khashoggi is barely credible, and has been dismissed by the world community, the critics of the Saudi regime and by the journalist’s friends and supporters as an ugly fabrication or, at the very least, a gross distortion of the facts. Even the UN seeks some answers.

But for some Western governments, first and foremost the US, the statement in the early hours of Saturday from Riyadh claiming that Khashoggi was unintentionally killed in a “fist fight” offers a possible way out of a diplomatic crisis that has threatened to disrupt, or even destroy, a political, security and financial relationship they regard as vital to their national interests and arms business.

This is while there are still some hard questions that Riyadh has been unable to answer:

Why did Bin Salman and his officials wait for almost two weeks before admitting Khashoggi was dead, if his killing was not deliberate? Why all those staunch denials of involvement and the repeated, on-the-record assertions that Khashoggi had left the consulate unscathed, if they knew all along that he had died?

Why has Khashoggi’s body disappeared? If his death was an unintended accident, why was an ambulance not called and the police informed? The Saudi statements offer no clue as to where Khashoggi’s remains may be now. Turkish assertions that he was dismembered, smuggled out of the building in suitcases and buried in a forest near Istanbul are now more widely accepted.

It is hard to believe, too, that the two senior officials, close advisers to Bin Salman, who have been sacked for supposedly conducting, or mishandling, a ‘rogue’ operation or a botched interrogation, took any significant decisions without the crown prince’s prior knowledge. That’s not how things work in Riyadh.

Not is that all. If this was just a ‘discussion’, why did at least 15 men travel to Istanbul for the meeting at the consulate? Why did this Saudi group include a forensic expert and members of security forces? Why did they bring a bone saw with themselves? Why did the team leader make 12 calls to the special secretary of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in the one hour when Khashoggi was killed? Last but not the least, how could the crown prince not have known all this, specially when seven of the 15 men involved were either his body guards or top advisors?

However you look at it, the Saudi account makes no suggestion that the crown prince knew about what happened to Khashoggi. Indeed, he has been tapped by his father, King Salman, to lead a commission that is designed to review and “modernize” the kingdom’s intelligence operations after the death of the journalist!!!

The 33-year-old Mohammed is widely considered the real power in Saudi Arabia, however, and he has had to know something about this whole mess.

As is, the world community wants justice for Khashoggi and wants his murderers to be punished.

The world wants some answers and this brutal episode in Saudi politics is far from over. Things have just started for the MbS.