August 19, 2024
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Jeddah on 20 March, 2024
[VELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), allegedly forged his father King Salman’s signature to deploy ground troops to Yemen, a former royal adviser has claimed. According to the Times, citing a new BBC documentary, Saad Al-Jabri, an ex-aide to former Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Nayef (MBN), made the allegations.
Al-Jabri, who was a key figure in the Saudi intelligence community, stated that MBS, then the minister of defence, was the primary force behind the US-backed 2015 military intervention against the Houthi movement and allied forces in the Yemeni military.
In The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince, which will air this evening, Al-Jabri said: “We started the war in March [2015] and MBS was pushing towards ground intervention. MBN — who was crown prince — said no. Our army was not tested and we do not think that they will do a job.”
“So MBN issued a decree by the king to prevent any ground interventions. Later on, we were surprised that there was a royal decree to allow the ground interventions.”
The joint Saudi and UAE-led coalition’s involvement in Yemen has resulted in nearly 400,000 deaths and displaced 4.5 million people, according to UN estimates. Saudi-led air raids also claimed the lives of almost 9,000 people, injuring over 10,000.
Al-Jabri, who now lives in Canada after fleeing the kingdom in 2017, insists his claim has reliable sources within the Ministry of Interior who confirm the forgery.
Sir John Sawers, former chief of MI6, said that although he did not know whether the royal forged the documents, “it is clear that this was MBS’s decision to intervene militarily in Yemen. It wasn’t his father’s decision, although his father was carried along with it.”
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), allegedly forged his father King Salman’s signature to deploy ground troops to Yemen, a former royal adviser has claimed. According to the Times, citing a new BBC documentary, Saad Al-Jabri, an ex-aide to former Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Nayef (MBN), made the allegations.
Al-Jabri, who was a key figure in the Saudi intelligence community, stated that MBS, then the minister of defence, was the primary force behind the US-backed 2015 military intervention against the Houthi movement and allied forces in the Yemeni military.
In The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince, which will air this evening, Al-Jabri said: “We started the war in March [2015] and MBS was pushing towards ground intervention. MBN — who was crown prince — said no. Our army was not tested and we do not think that they will do a job.”
“So MBN issued a decree by the king to prevent any ground interventions. Later on, we were surprised that there was a royal decree to allow the ground interventions.”
The joint Saudi and UAE-led coalition’s involvement in Yemen has resulted in nearly 400,000 deaths and displaced 4.5 million people, according to UN estimates. Saudi-led air raids also claimed the lives of almost 9,000 people, injuring over 10,000.
Al-Jabri, who now lives in Canada after fleeing the kingdom in 2017, insists his claim has reliable sources within the Ministry of Interior who confirm the forgery.
Sir John Sawers, former chief of MI6, said that although he did not know whether the royal forged the documents, “it is clear that this was MBS’s decision to intervene militarily in Yemen. It wasn’t his father’s decision, although his father was carried along with it.”
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