MBS missing - Might Be Something he said?

[yankeedoodle]

People are wondering why nobody has seen MBS, the Saudi Prince, and there's a rumor that he is dead.  Might Be Something he said, because this comes shortly after the rumor that he said that he had President King/Kushner "in his pocket."

Where is MBS? Why isn't Saudi Arabia quashing rumours of his death outright?
http://www.ibtimes.sg/where-mbs-why-isnt-saudi-arabia-quashing-rumours-his-death-outright-26354

The all-powerful Saudi Arabian Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, has been missing on the world stage for more than a month. The uncanny absence of the ultimate champion of reform in the world's most orthodox Muslim nation has given rise to rumours of his death.

The 32-year-old prince, who shot through the ranks quickly and annihilated opposition within the royal family with breakneck speed, has been mysteriously absent on public stage after the April 21 incident in Riyadh, which had been variously interpreted as a coup attempt and the shooting down of a drone. In the aftermath of the continued absence of the flamboyant royal, rumour mills thrived. The Iranian media took the lead in circulating theories of his death.

However, even as Iran, the biggest adversary of Saudi Arabia, apparently allowed the MBS death rumours to thrive in the online space, authorities in Riyadh mysteriously chose not to rush to debunk the rumours. Was it because the claim was so outlandish and silly? Or was it because a response would be interpreted as a sign of their vulnerability? Or, worse still, was MBS injured in the alleged April 21 coup attempt?

"At least two bullets have hit bin Salman in April 21 clashes in Riyadh and it is even possible that he is dead," wrote Iran's Kayhan newspaper. 'There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the absence of nearly 30 days of Muhammad bin Sulman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, is due to an incident which is being hidden from the public,' it claimed.

The rumour that took life in Iran then spread around the world, with fringe Russian and Israeli news outlets picking it up. The carefully intoned reporting of the inflammatory rumour was then taken up tabloids in the US, UK, Pakistan and elsewhere. However, MBS, who had famously claimed in an interview with CBS in March that only death can stop his reform drive, did not turn up in public all these days.

Finally, with the death and coup rumours flying thick and fast, the Saudi Arabian authorities released a couple of pictures of the Prince this week. One photo showed the prince attending a cabinet meeting in Jeddah while in another he was seen chairing a meeting of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs. However, this move gave rise to probing questions. Why wasn't a video released? Why didn't the prince attend any public events in the last month?

Curiously, Prince Salman was not in attendance during the high profile visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the end of April. MBS used to be highly active on the diplomatic circuit ever since his elevation to the position this year. His US visit in March was carefully choreographed to make him pass off as a visionary ruler from the Middle East. Yet he was completely absent during Pompeo's important visit.

This week, reports from Saudi Arabia said a number of activists, including many women's rights activists, were arrested. The arrests came just a few weeks before one of the biggest 'MBS reforms' were to materialise. Saudi Arabia is officially ending the driving ban on June 24, a key promise made by MBS. Sceptics think the arrests of the women activists may hint at something more sinister. That MBS may have been killed in a coup, or that he has been debilitated. The rumour mills, however, don't offer any concrete evidence.



Jared Kushner 'In Pocket' Of Saudi Prince Who Says He Engineered Rex Tillerson Firing, Two New Reports Allege
https://www.inquisitr.com/4835927/jared-kushner-saudi-prince-rex-tillerson-donald-trump/

A Saudi Arabian crown prince who at age 32 has rapidly become the most powerful man in his country recently boasted to other Arab leaders that he has Donald Trump's son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner "in his pocket," according to an explosive investigative report published by The Intercept news site on Wednesday.

But merely claiming to control Kushner — who is the husband of Trump's daughter and who wields extraordinary levels or responsibility within the Trump administration — was not enough for the Saudi prince, who also has privately claimed that his influence over Kushner was what led to the firing on March 13 of United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, according to a separate investigation by Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.

The 37-year-old Kushner and de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known simply by his initials MBS, have formed a close bond over the past year, but according to the new reports on Wednesday, that relationship appears to be strikingly one-sided, perhaps unbeknownst to Kushner.

The Intercept report, which may be read in full at this link, also alleges that Kushner revealed secret intelligence information to MBS during an impromptu trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last October.

"The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy," The Washington Post wrote of the October meeting, perhaps sarcastically referring to Trump's son-in-law as a "prince."

While the exact subjects of the conversations between Kushner and MBS have not been publicly reported, according to The Intercept, the Saudi prince later confided to friends that Kushner had revealed the names of Saudis who opposed the prince's ascent to power — names that came directly from Trump's daily briefing.

Less than one month later, MBS ordered the arrests of 11 political opponents on corruption charges, in a move that observers say was designed to purge the upper echelons of Saudi royal politics and solidify his power. Whether any of those arrested were among the names allegedly revealed by Kushner to the Saudi prince is unknown.

Kushner, through a spokesperson, denied that he had leaked the names to MBS. Nonetheless, according to the Intercept report, MBS later bragged to United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed that Kushner was "in his pocket." Kushner, who has only an "interim" security clearance, lost access to the Daily Brief last month.

But according to the Daily Mail report, MBS continues to hold sway over Kushner, and as a result of U.S. policy — even causing the firing of the U.S. Secretary of State.

"MBS is claiming that firing Tillerson was one of his requests to Trump via Kushner to be implemented before his visit to the U.S. and it appears that he got what he wanted," a source told the paper. The Saudi prince is in Washington D.C. for high-level talks this week.

Tillerson was said to favor a nuclear weapons deal with Saudi Arabia's bitter rival, Iran, enraging the Saudis who then used Kushner to get Tillerson fired, according to the Mail report.

The purge of political opponents by MBS was reportedly brutal, with one rival, Major General Ali Al-Qahtani dying after he was repeatedly tortured by electrical shocks, according to reports in the Arabic press.

Tillerson has reportedly been privately critical of Kushner's "freelancing" in foreign policy areas, which may have given Kushner an additional motivation to press for his firing.