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.

Time for Lebanon to Form Unity Government

By: Kayhan Int’l

It is now more than five months since the parliamentary polls were held in Lebanon with a turnout of fifty percent, yet the country is without the new government, as the outgoing prime minister, Sa’d al-Hariri, whom the Sunni bloc, as per the constitution wants to retain in his post, is still hesitating to form the cabinet because of undue pressures upon him by the US and Saudi Arabia – the two countries who hate to see a stable and thriving Lebanon.

On October 4, Hariri promised a week or ten days for naming the new cabinet, but this deadline has also expired, raising concerns amongst the various political parties and religious groups that something fishy is going on behind the scenes.

The doubts expressed by the parliamentary bloc of Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah, on the promise of the prime minister-designate to for the unity government, have come true.

It seems Hariri is still shaken by the humiliation he went through in Riyadh over a year ago when after being summoned to the Saudi capital he was forced by de facto ruler MBS (Mohamed bin Salman the self-imposed Heir Apparent of the senile King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz) to announce his resignation as Lebanese premier after being reportedly manhandled.

The Saudis and the Americans are scared stiff of the natural role played in Lebanon by that country’s popular movement, the Hezbollah, whose popularity spans religious and political lines, for its heroic defence of the country’s integrity and independence in the face of aggressions by the illegal Zionist entity.

Riyadh, Washington and their few accomplices have lost their sleep, especially after Hezbollah’s heroic role in helping the government of neighouring Syria beat off the terrorist attempt to take over the country. In vain, the US has resorted to a series of lies and accusations by branding Hezbollah as a ‘criminal’ and ‘terrorist’ organization, while the people of Lebanon dismiss all such allegations.

Even Hezbollah is unconcerned about the latest theatrics of the Machiavellian Trump Administration against it, and is confident that Washington cannot do a damn thing to dent its legitimacy and popularity in view of the mass public support it enjoys both at home and in the region. 

On May 6 Lebanon held its first parliamentary polls after nine years with over 500 candidates vying for the 128 seats. As per the results, Hezbollah and its political allies secured over half the seats – 67 to be exact – but for the sake of the country’s unity, peace, and stability, agreed to give concessions, provided its elected representatives receive a fair share of the ministries.

It is worth noting that Hezbollah’s allies include the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement founded by Aoun – two of the heavyweights in Lebanese politics.

This warrants the forming of a broad-based independent unity government that neither bows to Saudi pressures or kowtows to American dictates.

It is hoped that Hariri will summon the courage to take advantage of the sudden turn of events in the region following the ghastly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia and the resulting rift in Riyadh’s relations with godfather US, to announce the new government of Lebanon.

It is obvious that MBS has miserably failed yet once again, and this should enable Beirut confidently take the expected independent step for formation of the government, as all factors indicate the decline, downfall and demise of the over-inflated MBS.