CNN
"Syria accidentally shot down a Russian military plane"
By Barbara Starr, Ryan Browne and Nathan Hodge, CNN
18 SEPTEMBER 2018
Syria inadvertently shot down a Russian military plane after an Israeli attack on Syrian positions, killing 15 people on board, Moscow said.
The Russian military said Tuesday that the Russian maritime patrol aircraft was shot by by Syrian regime anti-aircraft artillery amid the Israeli attack on Monday, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
Moscow blamed Israel for putting its aircraft in the line of fire, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
"As a result of the irresponsible actions of the Israeli military, 15 Russian servicemen were killed, which is absolutely not in keeping with the spirit of Russian-Israeli partnership," said Russian Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, spokesperson for the Russian military, according to RIA-Novosti.
In a statement Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to the accusations by blaming the Assad regime for the deaths of the Russian aircrew and claiming that the IDF had followed the usual procedures when carrying out an attack in Syria, including making use of well-established communication links with Moscow.
"Israel holds the Assad regime, whose military shot down the Russian plane, fully responsible for this incident," the statement said, adding that Iran and Hezbollah were also accountable.
According to the statement, Syrian anti-aircraft batteries "fired indiscriminately and from what we understand did not bother to ensure no Russian planes were in the air."
The incident presents Moscow with a diplomatic conundrum, as the country has a strong relationship with both Israel and the Syrian regime.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday Moscow was "extremely concerned" about the downing of the aircraft, but declined to comment on further steps the Russian government might take in response or on any potential impact on relations between Russia and Israel.
According to a handout from the Russian Ministry of Defense of a conversation between Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and his Russian counterpart, Army General Sergei Shoigu, Shoigu described the actions of the Israeli air force as irresponsible and said to Liberman that the fault for the downed plane and the deaths of its crew "rests entirely with the Israeli side."
"We reserve the right for further reciprocal steps," Shoigu said, according to the handout.
Anti-aircraft system 'sold to Syria by Russians'
Reports of Syrian air defense activity and a missing Russian aircraft spread across Russian and Syrian news media Monday.
Russian state news agency TASS reported that a Russian IL-20 military aircraft disappeared over the Mediterranean.
TASS, citing the Russian defense ministry, said the aircraft went off the radars during an attack by four Israeli F-16 aircraft on Syrian targets in the north-western province of Latakia, where Russia has based much of its military presence, including aircraft.
Separately, Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported that air defense systems had intercepted a number of hostile missiles coming from the sea into Latakia city.
The Russian military said Israel notified the Russian side about the planned operation only a minute in advance, and that Israeli controllers would have seen the Russian plane, which was coming in to land, RIA reported.
In a highly unusual move, the IDF released details of its operation in Syria Monday, revealing that fighter jets targeted a Syrian Armed Forces facility, "from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred on behalf of Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon."
"These weapons were meant to attack Israel, and posed an intolerable threat against it," the IDF said in a statement Tuesday.
The IDF alleges that by the time Syrian anti-aircraft missiles had been launched, Israeli warplanes responsible for the overnight operation were already back within Israeli airspace.
The IDF also says that the Russian plane was not "within the area of operation" while the Israeli strike on Latakia was underway.
The aircraft was shot down by an anti-aircraft system the Russians sold to the Syrians several years ago, a US official with knowledge of the incident told CNN Monday.
The Syrian air defense network in western Syria is very densely populated with anti-aircraft missile and radar systems.
In February, the two-man crew of an Israeli F-16 ejected from their aircraft when a missile exploded near them, damaging their aircraft as they finished conducting a mission against Syrian forces.
An Israeli defense official told CNN earlier this month that Israel has struck Syria 200 times in the past 18 months to prevent the deployment of Iranian weapons in the region.
Demilitarized zone in neighboring Idlib
The incident occurred on the same day that Russia announced a joint agreement with Turkey to create a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib province, which neighbors Latakia, potentially thwarting a large-scale military operation and impending humanitarian disaster in the country's last rebel stronghold.
Speaking alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at talks in Sochi on Monday, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the creation of a 15-20 kilometer (approximately 9-12 miles) demilitarized zone will prevent a "humanitarian crisis" in the northwestern province.
All heavy military equipment tanks, ground-to-air missiles and mortars of all the opposition groups will be removed by October 10, the leaders said.
The zone, which will be patrolled by Turkish and Russian military units, will become operational from October 15.
Erdogan described the agreement as a "solution" to the issues in the region.
Speaking Tuesday, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the downing of the Russian aircraft would not affect the Sochi agreement "in any way," adding that "this is an important, breakthrough agreement."
In recent weeks, Syrian and Russian planes have conducted scores of airstrikes in Idlib in the run-up to an anticipated offensive by Russian-backed Syrian forces to retake the last part of the country under armed opposition.
Last week, UN officials said that more than 30,000 people fled the province in anticipation of the government offensive.
Natalie Gallon, Andrew Carey, Mary Ilyushina, Judith Vonberg and Radina Gigova contributed reporting.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/syr ... id=HPDHP17
TURKEY
Re: TURKEY
CNN
"Jamal Khashoggi: Body of missing Saudi journalist was cut into pieces, Turkish official says"
By CNN Staff, CNN
16 OCTOBER 2018
The body of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was cut into pieces after he was killed two weeks ago at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a Turkish official told CNN on Tuesday.
The claim, which was first made to the New York Times earlier in the investigation into Khashoggi's fate, comes after Turkish officials searched the consulate for nine hours on Monday night.
The Turkish official would not comment on the disposal method for the body.
Turkish officials have said privately that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate on October 2 after he arrived to obtain papers that would have allowed him to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.
Saudi Arabia has previously insisted he left the building alive, but Cengiz says she never saw him again.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier Tuesday said Turkish investigators were looking into "toxic" and "painted over material" as part of their inquiry.
"My hope is that we can reach conclusions that will give us a reasonable opinion as soon as possible, because the investigation is looking into many things such as toxic materials and those materials being removed by painting them over," Erdogan told reporters.
CNN saw a cleaning crew enter the main consulate building on Monday before Turkish officials, including a forensics team, arrived to begin their investigation.
Turkish investigators were expected to carry out a search of the Saudi Consul General's residence in Istanbul later on Tuesday.
CCTV footage, which has served as a focal point in the investigations, showed vehicles moving from the consulate building to the nearby Consul General's residence on October 2.
The semiofficial Anadolu news agency said Saudi's Istanbul Consul General, Mohammed Otaibi, left the country on Tuesday.
On Friday, a source familiar with the ongoing investigation told CNN that Turkish authorities have audio and visual evidence that showed Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate.
The evidence, which was described to the source by a Western intelligence agency, showed there had been an assault and a struggle inside the consulate.
There is also evidence of the moment that Khashoggi was killed, the source said.
Saudi Arabia has been under intense international pressure to explain Khashoggi's apparent death, which has created a diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the West.
US President Donald Trump dispatched US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday as sources told CNN that the Kingdom was preparing to acknowledge that Khashoggi died at the consulate in Istanbul as a result of an interrogation that went wrong.
The sources said the interrogation was intended to lead to his enforced return to Saudi Arabia.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jam ... id=HPDHP17
"Jamal Khashoggi: Body of missing Saudi journalist was cut into pieces, Turkish official says"
By CNN Staff, CNN
16 OCTOBER 2018
The body of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was cut into pieces after he was killed two weeks ago at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a Turkish official told CNN on Tuesday.
The claim, which was first made to the New York Times earlier in the investigation into Khashoggi's fate, comes after Turkish officials searched the consulate for nine hours on Monday night.
The Turkish official would not comment on the disposal method for the body.
Turkish officials have said privately that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate on October 2 after he arrived to obtain papers that would have allowed him to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.
Saudi Arabia has previously insisted he left the building alive, but Cengiz says she never saw him again.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier Tuesday said Turkish investigators were looking into "toxic" and "painted over material" as part of their inquiry.
"My hope is that we can reach conclusions that will give us a reasonable opinion as soon as possible, because the investigation is looking into many things such as toxic materials and those materials being removed by painting them over," Erdogan told reporters.
CNN saw a cleaning crew enter the main consulate building on Monday before Turkish officials, including a forensics team, arrived to begin their investigation.
Turkish investigators were expected to carry out a search of the Saudi Consul General's residence in Istanbul later on Tuesday.
CCTV footage, which has served as a focal point in the investigations, showed vehicles moving from the consulate building to the nearby Consul General's residence on October 2.
The semiofficial Anadolu news agency said Saudi's Istanbul Consul General, Mohammed Otaibi, left the country on Tuesday.
On Friday, a source familiar with the ongoing investigation told CNN that Turkish authorities have audio and visual evidence that showed Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate.
The evidence, which was described to the source by a Western intelligence agency, showed there had been an assault and a struggle inside the consulate.
There is also evidence of the moment that Khashoggi was killed, the source said.
Saudi Arabia has been under intense international pressure to explain Khashoggi's apparent death, which has created a diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the West.
US President Donald Trump dispatched US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday as sources told CNN that the Kingdom was preparing to acknowledge that Khashoggi died at the consulate in Istanbul as a result of an interrogation that went wrong.
The sources said the interrogation was intended to lead to his enforced return to Saudi Arabia.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jam ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Audio Contains Gruesome Details of Khashoggi Killing, Turkish Official Says"
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
17 OCTOBER 2018
ISTANBUL — His killers were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.
They severed his fingers during an interrogation and later beheaded and dismembered him, according to details from audio recordings published in the Turkish news media on Wednesday.
It was all over within a few minutes, the recordings suggested.
A senior Turkish official confirmed the details that were published in the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Safak.
The leaking of such details, on the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Turkey, reflected an escalation of pressure by the Turkish government on Saudi Arabia and the United States for answers on the fate of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist who wrote for The Washington Post.
Fifteen days after he entered the consulate in Istanbul and was never seen coming out, the Saudis have yet to give an explanation.
Top Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance — denials that they repeated to Mr. Pompeo when he visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
A team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was waiting for Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2.
After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Mr. Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers, the senior Turkish official said.
“Do this outside."
"You will put me in trouble,” Mr. al-Otaibi, the consul, told them, according to the Turkish official and the report in Yeni Safak, both citing audio recordings said to have been obtained by Turkish intelligence.
“If you want to live when you come back to Arabia, shut up,” one of the agents replied, according to both the official and the newspaper.
“Horrendous tortures were committed on Khashoggi, who came to the consulate for documents,” the Yeni Safak account said.
As they cut off Mr. Khashoggi’s head and dismembered his body, a doctor of forensics who had been brought along for the dissection and disposal had some advice for the others, according to the senior Turkish official.
Listen to music, he told them, as he put on headphones himself.
That was what he did to ease the tension when doing such work, the official said, describing the contents of the audio recording.
Such information would not have been disclosed in Turkey without the consent of the government.
Turkish media outlets and newspapers are closely controlled: They are either government-controlled or owned by pro-government business executives.
Censors are often present in newsrooms, and reporters and editors take close instructions from officials in the presidency.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/aud ... id=HPDHP17
"Audio Contains Gruesome Details of Khashoggi Killing, Turkish Official Says"
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
17 OCTOBER 2018
ISTANBUL — His killers were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.
They severed his fingers during an interrogation and later beheaded and dismembered him, according to details from audio recordings published in the Turkish news media on Wednesday.
It was all over within a few minutes, the recordings suggested.
A senior Turkish official confirmed the details that were published in the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Safak.
The leaking of such details, on the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Turkey, reflected an escalation of pressure by the Turkish government on Saudi Arabia and the United States for answers on the fate of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist who wrote for The Washington Post.
Fifteen days after he entered the consulate in Istanbul and was never seen coming out, the Saudis have yet to give an explanation.
Top Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance — denials that they repeated to Mr. Pompeo when he visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
A team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was waiting for Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2.
After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Mr. Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers, the senior Turkish official said.
“Do this outside."
"You will put me in trouble,” Mr. al-Otaibi, the consul, told them, according to the Turkish official and the report in Yeni Safak, both citing audio recordings said to have been obtained by Turkish intelligence.
“If you want to live when you come back to Arabia, shut up,” one of the agents replied, according to both the official and the newspaper.
“Horrendous tortures were committed on Khashoggi, who came to the consulate for documents,” the Yeni Safak account said.
As they cut off Mr. Khashoggi’s head and dismembered his body, a doctor of forensics who had been brought along for the dissection and disposal had some advice for the others, according to the senior Turkish official.
Listen to music, he told them, as he put on headphones himself.
That was what he did to ease the tension when doing such work, the official said, describing the contents of the audio recording.
Such information would not have been disclosed in Turkey without the consent of the government.
Turkish media outlets and newspapers are closely controlled: They are either government-controlled or owned by pro-government business executives.
Censors are often present in newsrooms, and reporters and editors take close instructions from officials in the presidency.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/aud ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
THE WASHINGTON POST
"Suspects in disappearance of Khashoggi linked to Saudi security services"
Shane Harris, Erin Cunningham, Aaron Davis, Tamer El-Ghobashy
16 OCTOBER 2018
Three days before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in the United States earlier this year for a nationwide tour, another Saudi traveler who identifies online as a member of the Saudi Royal Guard also arrived in Washington, passport records show.
His stay overlapped with that of the prince.
Two times before that, this traveler had made other trips to the United States that coincided with visits by top members of the Saudi royal family, including King Salman and another one of his sons.
That same traveler, Khalid Aedh Alotaibi, has now appeared on a list provided by Turkish officials of 15 Saudis who Turkey alleges participated in the disappearance and alleged killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2.
On Tuesday, Turkish officials provided passport scans for seven members of what they called a hit squad, and that information helped confirm Alotaibi’s travels to Washington.
Alotaibi is one of 11 Saudis included on the list who have ties to the Saudi security services, according to their posts on social media, emails, local media reports and other material reviewed by The Washington Post.
Two weeks after the disappearance of Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section and critic of the Saudi government, there is mounting scrutiny of the 15 men identified by Turkey as members of the Saudi team involved in his death.
Turkey released the list as a way to demonstrate Saudi involvement in the killing.
According to the Turkish account and flight information, the 15 men arrived in Istanbul on Oct. 2 — most of them early in the morning — and then departed in the hours after Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance and say they have no information about his whereabouts.
They say he left the consulate shortly after he arrived to obtain a document he needed for an upcoming marriage.
Saudi Arabia has made no official statement about the men or said why they may have been in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
A report on the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel said the 15 were “tourists” who had been falsely accused.
U.S. officials now expect the Saudi government to accept responsibility for the death of Khashoggi in an explanation that shields the powerful crown prince from fault, said a diplomat familiar with the situation.
The diplomat spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
With President Trump suggesting that Khashoggi might have died at the hands of “rogue killers,” attention has increasingly focused on the identities of the men on the list and their reported links to the Saudi government, security services and the crown prince himself.
Alotaibi and eight others identified as suspects by Turkish officials appear to have profiles on MenoM3ay — a phone directory app popular in the Arab world — identifying themselves as members of the Saudi security forces, with some claiming to be members of the Royal Guard.
In one instance, Alotaibi identified himself with a symbol for the Royal Guard.
In another, someone else saved him in their contacts with the same symbol for the security force, which is charged with protecting the royal family.
Repeated attempts to contact Alotaibi using the phone number listed in the app were unsuccessful.
Five of the eight others are repeatedly identified in the app as either officers in the Royal Guard or employees of the royal palace.
Two of the Saudis on the list, Naif Hassan S. Alarifi and Saif Saad Q. Alqahtani, are repeatedly identified in the app as even closer to the royal family — specifically as employees of the “Crown Prince office.”
The Post could not independently confirm that either man works for the crown prince.
Phone calls placed to the numbers in the app over several days were not answered or showed that the phones were turned off.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the 15 men since last week.
Four men with those same names, however, self-identify in Facebook and other social media posts or have been quoted in Saudi news articles as members of the country’s security forces.
Another one of the suspects who appears to identify himself on the app as a member of the Saudi security forces is Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb.
A decade ago, Mutreb was listed as the first secretary at the Saudi Embassy in London, according to a British list of diplomats.
Mutreb’s name also appears in hacked emails released three years ago by WikiLeaks.
In an email sent to officials at an Italian security firm in 2011, a Saudi official identified Mutreb as among embassy staff who would receive advanced security training.
The New York Times reported late Tuesday that Mutreb had frequently accompanied and been photographed in proximity to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on official trips to Madrid, Paris, Houston, Boston and the United Nations.
In the article, the Times reported that it had found evidence that at least nine of the 15 Saudis on the list provided by Turkey worked for the Saudi military, security services or other government branches.
Another man identified by Turkish officials is Muhammed Saad Alzahrani, who is also identified on the app as a member of the Royal Guard.
A video showing a man wearing a black security uniform bearing the same name was posted on YouTube last year guarding the crown prince as he greeted visitors.
The guard in the video closely resembles the picture of Zahrani in a passport image provided to The Post on Tuesday.
Reached by phone Tuesday on a number listed in MenoM3ay, Zahrani denied being in Turkey and declined to say if he works for the crown prince, saying what he does for a living “is personal information.”
When told that The Post had been provided a copy of what purported to be his passport from Turkish officials, which includes patriarchal names, Zahrani asked if a reporter knew his mother’s name.
The reporter said he did not, and Zahrani hung up.
Among the most prominent names on the Saudi team list is Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, a forensic expert known for pioneering rapid and mobile autopsies, who flew into Istanbul shortly after Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate and flew out nine hours later, Turkish officials say.
Tubaigy, 47, is a top professor in the criminal evidence department at Naif Arab University for Security Sciences.
He presides over master thesis classes on identifying bones through DNA analysis and how the use of formaldehyde limits genetic tissue analysis.
But Tubaigy is also close to Saudi security operations, teaching and providing expert opinions on evidence collection and investigation.
In 2014, he persuaded Saudi officials to let him help design and purchase a $2.5 million tractor-trailer-size autopsy lab to accompany Muslims on the hajj to Mecca.
In an interview with Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic news organization, he touted the truck as a first-of-its-kind in the world.
The mobile autopsy operation, he said, could provide preliminary analysis on some diseases in seven minutes and “provide the dissection service to the security authorities in a record time.”
Tubaigy has not responded to email and phone messages left at three numbers associated with the profile he had set up on an Arabic subscription phone app.
shane.harris@washpost.com
erin.cunningham@washpost.com
aaron.davis@washpost.com
tamer.el-ghobashy@washpost.com
Cunningham reported from Istanbul. Julie Tate and John Hudson in Washington and Souad Mekhennet and Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sus ... id=HPDHP17
"Suspects in disappearance of Khashoggi linked to Saudi security services"
Shane Harris, Erin Cunningham, Aaron Davis, Tamer El-Ghobashy
16 OCTOBER 2018
Three days before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in the United States earlier this year for a nationwide tour, another Saudi traveler who identifies online as a member of the Saudi Royal Guard also arrived in Washington, passport records show.
His stay overlapped with that of the prince.
Two times before that, this traveler had made other trips to the United States that coincided with visits by top members of the Saudi royal family, including King Salman and another one of his sons.
That same traveler, Khalid Aedh Alotaibi, has now appeared on a list provided by Turkish officials of 15 Saudis who Turkey alleges participated in the disappearance and alleged killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2.
On Tuesday, Turkish officials provided passport scans for seven members of what they called a hit squad, and that information helped confirm Alotaibi’s travels to Washington.
Alotaibi is one of 11 Saudis included on the list who have ties to the Saudi security services, according to their posts on social media, emails, local media reports and other material reviewed by The Washington Post.
Two weeks after the disappearance of Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section and critic of the Saudi government, there is mounting scrutiny of the 15 men identified by Turkey as members of the Saudi team involved in his death.
Turkey released the list as a way to demonstrate Saudi involvement in the killing.
According to the Turkish account and flight information, the 15 men arrived in Istanbul on Oct. 2 — most of them early in the morning — and then departed in the hours after Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance and say they have no information about his whereabouts.
They say he left the consulate shortly after he arrived to obtain a document he needed for an upcoming marriage.
Saudi Arabia has made no official statement about the men or said why they may have been in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
A report on the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel said the 15 were “tourists” who had been falsely accused.
U.S. officials now expect the Saudi government to accept responsibility for the death of Khashoggi in an explanation that shields the powerful crown prince from fault, said a diplomat familiar with the situation.
The diplomat spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
With President Trump suggesting that Khashoggi might have died at the hands of “rogue killers,” attention has increasingly focused on the identities of the men on the list and their reported links to the Saudi government, security services and the crown prince himself.
Alotaibi and eight others identified as suspects by Turkish officials appear to have profiles on MenoM3ay — a phone directory app popular in the Arab world — identifying themselves as members of the Saudi security forces, with some claiming to be members of the Royal Guard.
In one instance, Alotaibi identified himself with a symbol for the Royal Guard.
In another, someone else saved him in their contacts with the same symbol for the security force, which is charged with protecting the royal family.
Repeated attempts to contact Alotaibi using the phone number listed in the app were unsuccessful.
Five of the eight others are repeatedly identified in the app as either officers in the Royal Guard or employees of the royal palace.
Two of the Saudis on the list, Naif Hassan S. Alarifi and Saif Saad Q. Alqahtani, are repeatedly identified in the app as even closer to the royal family — specifically as employees of the “Crown Prince office.”
The Post could not independently confirm that either man works for the crown prince.
Phone calls placed to the numbers in the app over several days were not answered or showed that the phones were turned off.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the 15 men since last week.
Four men with those same names, however, self-identify in Facebook and other social media posts or have been quoted in Saudi news articles as members of the country’s security forces.
Another one of the suspects who appears to identify himself on the app as a member of the Saudi security forces is Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb.
A decade ago, Mutreb was listed as the first secretary at the Saudi Embassy in London, according to a British list of diplomats.
Mutreb’s name also appears in hacked emails released three years ago by WikiLeaks.
In an email sent to officials at an Italian security firm in 2011, a Saudi official identified Mutreb as among embassy staff who would receive advanced security training.
The New York Times reported late Tuesday that Mutreb had frequently accompanied and been photographed in proximity to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on official trips to Madrid, Paris, Houston, Boston and the United Nations.
In the article, the Times reported that it had found evidence that at least nine of the 15 Saudis on the list provided by Turkey worked for the Saudi military, security services or other government branches.
Another man identified by Turkish officials is Muhammed Saad Alzahrani, who is also identified on the app as a member of the Royal Guard.
A video showing a man wearing a black security uniform bearing the same name was posted on YouTube last year guarding the crown prince as he greeted visitors.
The guard in the video closely resembles the picture of Zahrani in a passport image provided to The Post on Tuesday.
Reached by phone Tuesday on a number listed in MenoM3ay, Zahrani denied being in Turkey and declined to say if he works for the crown prince, saying what he does for a living “is personal information.”
When told that The Post had been provided a copy of what purported to be his passport from Turkish officials, which includes patriarchal names, Zahrani asked if a reporter knew his mother’s name.
The reporter said he did not, and Zahrani hung up.
Among the most prominent names on the Saudi team list is Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, a forensic expert known for pioneering rapid and mobile autopsies, who flew into Istanbul shortly after Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate and flew out nine hours later, Turkish officials say.
Tubaigy, 47, is a top professor in the criminal evidence department at Naif Arab University for Security Sciences.
He presides over master thesis classes on identifying bones through DNA analysis and how the use of formaldehyde limits genetic tissue analysis.
But Tubaigy is also close to Saudi security operations, teaching and providing expert opinions on evidence collection and investigation.
In 2014, he persuaded Saudi officials to let him help design and purchase a $2.5 million tractor-trailer-size autopsy lab to accompany Muslims on the hajj to Mecca.
In an interview with Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic news organization, he touted the truck as a first-of-its-kind in the world.
The mobile autopsy operation, he said, could provide preliminary analysis on some diseases in seven minutes and “provide the dissection service to the security authorities in a record time.”
Tubaigy has not responded to email and phone messages left at three numbers associated with the profile he had set up on an Arabic subscription phone app.
shane.harris@washpost.com
erin.cunningham@washpost.com
aaron.davis@washpost.com
tamer.el-ghobashy@washpost.com
Cunningham reported from Istanbul. Julie Tate and John Hudson in Washington and Souad Mekhennet and Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sus ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
SOUNDS LIKE A COVER-UP TO ME ...
THE GUARDIAN
"Jamal Khashoggi: Trump denies giving cover to Saudis as audio handed to US"
Julian Borger in Washington Bethan McKernan in Istanbul
17 OCTOBER 2018
Donald Trump says the US has asked Turkey for an audio recording of Jamal Khashoggi’s death which reportedly proves he was brutally tortured before his premeditated murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Turkish officials said the audio recording had been handed over to the US and Saudi Arabia.
But on Wednesday, Trump told reporters, “We’ve asked for it … if it exists” – before adding that it “probably does” exist.
Trump had previously suggested he believes the denials of responsibility from the Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and warned against a rush to judgement.
On Wednesday, Trump denied he was covering up for the Saudi royals but at the same time pointed to their importance as strategic and commercial partners.
“I’m not giving cover at all."
"And with that being said, Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours in the Middle East."
"We are stopping Iran,” he told reporters.
But Trump’s defence of the Saudi royals has become increasingly difficult as Turkish government leaks and press reports have revealed more details about the grisly nature of Khashoggi’s fate and the involvement of Saudi operatives close to the Saudi crown prince.
The evidence, if confirmed, would also undermine any Saudi attempt to claim that Khashoggi’s death was the result of an interrogation gone wrong, carried out by rogue elements in the Saudi intelligence and security services.
Multiple reports have suggested that Riyadh was contemplating putting out a narrative along those lines.
According to an account in the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Şafak, and a later report citing Turkish officials by the New York Times, the audio recording proves that Khashoggi was seized as soon as he entered the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, on 2 October.
The dissident journalist was beaten and had his fingers cut off, according to the news account.
Otaiba asked for the torture to be done outside his office, saying: “You will put me in trouble.”
“If you want to live when you come back to Arabia, shut up,” the consul was told by a Saudi hit team who had flown to Istanbul hours before Khashoggi’s planned visit to the consulate, where he had expected to pick up legal papers he needed to get married.
Khashoggi was beheaded and his body was cut up.
A Saudi forensics specialist Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy can be heard putting on headphones to listen to music and telling others to do the same while the body was dismembered, according to the reports.
Investigators believe that after the killing, Khashoggi’s body was taken to the consul general’s house, where it was disposed of.
Police set up barricades outside the residence on Tuesday evening to carry out a planned search of the premises, but Turkey was waiting for an agreement with Saudi Arabia to do so.
Under the Vienna convention, diplomatic missions are considered foreign soil.
Otaibi, who has not been seen in public since the scandal erupted, left Turkey on a commercial flight to Riyadh on Tuesday.
A search of the house and some diplomatic vehicles was planned for Wednesday evening, as well as a second sweep of the consulate.
Several Saudi investigators arrived at the consular residence on Wednesday afternoon before the joint investigation.
It is unclear how the Turkish authorities obtained audio recordings of the murder, but officials have briefed multiple news organisations on their macabre contents.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, initially refused to say whether he had heard the recordings at meetings at Istanbul airport on Wednesday morning with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
His spokeswoman later said that he had not.
In Washington, Donald Trump has come under increasing pressure for his defence of the Saudi regime, in the face of revulsion from top Republicans in the Senate.
"Saudi Arabia, they’re an ally, and they’re a tremendous purchaser of, not only military equipment, but other things."
- Donald Trump
In response to reporters’ questions about the case, Trump repeated past claims about US sales to Saudi Arabia, which have previously been shown to be vastly exaggerated.
“If you look at Saudi Arabia, they’re an ally, and they’re a tremendous purchaser of not only military equipment but other things,” he said.
“When I went there, they committed to purchase $450bn worth of things, and $110bn worth of military."
"Those are the biggest orders in the history of this country, probably the history of the world.”
The $110bn figure has been shown to have been hugely inflated, apparently reflecting some arms deals done under the Obama administration, and some statements of intent from Riyadh, but very few – if any – new contracts.
The Saudi government claimed at the time of Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May 2017 that the two countries would do $380bn in total business together, but that also appeared to be an aspirational figure.
Trump has denied any personal financial relationship with the Saudi monarchy but in the past he has sold a yacht and apartments for millions of dollars to Saudi customers and Saudis continue to use his hotels.
The president insisted he was determined to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi case.
“I want to find out what happened, where is the fault, and we will probably know that by the end of the week."
"But Mike Pompeo is coming back, we’re gonna have a long talk,” Trump said.
In his own remarks to reporters in Istanbul, Pompeo would not comment on whether the Saudi journalist was dead or alive, but there is little doubt now among US officials that he was assassinated.
Some of the 15-strong Saudi hit team that flew to Istanbul and lay in wait for Khashoggi in the consulate, are members of the crown prince’s entourage.
The team arrived on on two Gulfstream jets that flew in to Istanbul on October 2, the day of Khashoggi’s disappearance and returned to Riyadh on October 3.
The planes belonged to an aviation company that was seized by the Saudi government last year.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that four of the men identified by Turkish media as part of a 15-man hit squad sent from Riyadh to silence Khashoggi were members of Bin Salman’s personal security detail.
Tubaigy, holds a senior position in the Saudi interior ministry.
Before meeting Pompeo, Erdoğan had revealed signs of an attempted cover-up in the Saudi consulate, saying police had found freshly painted walls and “toxic” substances during a search of the building.
Çavuşoğlu described the two 40-minute meetings with Pompeo as “beneficial and fruitful”.
After their conversation, Pompeo did not reveal what Erdoğan had told him about the investigation, other than to claim the Saudis were cooperating fully after “a couple of delays”.
“He made clear that the Saudis had cooperated with the investigation that the Turks are engaged in, and that they are going to share information that they learned with the Saudis as well,” Pompeo said.
“There had been a couple of delays but they seemed pretty confident that the Saudis would permit them to do the things they needed to do to complete their thorough and complete investigation.”
Pompeo has attracted fierce criticism for his seemingly jovial meeting on Tuesday with the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Several of Bin Salman’s security detail have been identified in press reports as members of the hit squad alleged to have murdered Khashoggi in the consulate.
Asked whether the Saudis had told him whether Khashoggi was dead or alive, Pompeo replied: “I don’t want to talk about any of the facts."
"They didn’t want to either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way.”
Pompeo also claimed there was serious commitment in Riyadh to “determine all the facts and ensure accountability”.
After his meetings with the Turkish leadership, Pompeo said it was reasonable to give the Saudis more time to do so.
“It’s not about benefit of the doubt,” Pompeo said.
“It’s that it is reasonable to give them a handful of days more to complete that so they get it right so that it’s thorough and complete and that’s what they’ve indicated they need and I’m hopeful that we’ll get to see it.”
However, he made clear that the Trump administration would take the broader US relationship with the Saudi regime into account in deciding how to respond to the Khashoggi case.
“I do think it’s important that everyone keeps in their mind that we have a lot of important relationships – financial relationships between US and Saudi companies, governmental relationships – things we work on together all across the world."
"The efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of America from the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, Iran,” Pompeo said.
“The Saudis have been great partners in working alongside us on those issues …"
"And we just need to make sure that we are mindful of that as we approach decisions that the United States government will take.”
But the suspects’ direct links to the Saudi establishment weaken the suggestion made by Trump that the alleged murder could have been carried out by “rogue killers” in an unauthorised operation.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jam ... id=HPDHP17
THE GUARDIAN
"Jamal Khashoggi: Trump denies giving cover to Saudis as audio handed to US"
Julian Borger in Washington Bethan McKernan in Istanbul
17 OCTOBER 2018
Donald Trump says the US has asked Turkey for an audio recording of Jamal Khashoggi’s death which reportedly proves he was brutally tortured before his premeditated murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Turkish officials said the audio recording had been handed over to the US and Saudi Arabia.
But on Wednesday, Trump told reporters, “We’ve asked for it … if it exists” – before adding that it “probably does” exist.
Trump had previously suggested he believes the denials of responsibility from the Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and warned against a rush to judgement.
On Wednesday, Trump denied he was covering up for the Saudi royals but at the same time pointed to their importance as strategic and commercial partners.
“I’m not giving cover at all."
"And with that being said, Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours in the Middle East."
"We are stopping Iran,” he told reporters.
But Trump’s defence of the Saudi royals has become increasingly difficult as Turkish government leaks and press reports have revealed more details about the grisly nature of Khashoggi’s fate and the involvement of Saudi operatives close to the Saudi crown prince.
The evidence, if confirmed, would also undermine any Saudi attempt to claim that Khashoggi’s death was the result of an interrogation gone wrong, carried out by rogue elements in the Saudi intelligence and security services.
Multiple reports have suggested that Riyadh was contemplating putting out a narrative along those lines.
According to an account in the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Şafak, and a later report citing Turkish officials by the New York Times, the audio recording proves that Khashoggi was seized as soon as he entered the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, on 2 October.
The dissident journalist was beaten and had his fingers cut off, according to the news account.
Otaiba asked for the torture to be done outside his office, saying: “You will put me in trouble.”
“If you want to live when you come back to Arabia, shut up,” the consul was told by a Saudi hit team who had flown to Istanbul hours before Khashoggi’s planned visit to the consulate, where he had expected to pick up legal papers he needed to get married.
Khashoggi was beheaded and his body was cut up.
A Saudi forensics specialist Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy can be heard putting on headphones to listen to music and telling others to do the same while the body was dismembered, according to the reports.
Investigators believe that after the killing, Khashoggi’s body was taken to the consul general’s house, where it was disposed of.
Police set up barricades outside the residence on Tuesday evening to carry out a planned search of the premises, but Turkey was waiting for an agreement with Saudi Arabia to do so.
Under the Vienna convention, diplomatic missions are considered foreign soil.
Otaibi, who has not been seen in public since the scandal erupted, left Turkey on a commercial flight to Riyadh on Tuesday.
A search of the house and some diplomatic vehicles was planned for Wednesday evening, as well as a second sweep of the consulate.
Several Saudi investigators arrived at the consular residence on Wednesday afternoon before the joint investigation.
It is unclear how the Turkish authorities obtained audio recordings of the murder, but officials have briefed multiple news organisations on their macabre contents.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, initially refused to say whether he had heard the recordings at meetings at Istanbul airport on Wednesday morning with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
His spokeswoman later said that he had not.
In Washington, Donald Trump has come under increasing pressure for his defence of the Saudi regime, in the face of revulsion from top Republicans in the Senate.
"Saudi Arabia, they’re an ally, and they’re a tremendous purchaser of, not only military equipment, but other things."
- Donald Trump
In response to reporters’ questions about the case, Trump repeated past claims about US sales to Saudi Arabia, which have previously been shown to be vastly exaggerated.
“If you look at Saudi Arabia, they’re an ally, and they’re a tremendous purchaser of not only military equipment but other things,” he said.
“When I went there, they committed to purchase $450bn worth of things, and $110bn worth of military."
"Those are the biggest orders in the history of this country, probably the history of the world.”
The $110bn figure has been shown to have been hugely inflated, apparently reflecting some arms deals done under the Obama administration, and some statements of intent from Riyadh, but very few – if any – new contracts.
The Saudi government claimed at the time of Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May 2017 that the two countries would do $380bn in total business together, but that also appeared to be an aspirational figure.
Trump has denied any personal financial relationship with the Saudi monarchy but in the past he has sold a yacht and apartments for millions of dollars to Saudi customers and Saudis continue to use his hotels.
The president insisted he was determined to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi case.
“I want to find out what happened, where is the fault, and we will probably know that by the end of the week."
"But Mike Pompeo is coming back, we’re gonna have a long talk,” Trump said.
In his own remarks to reporters in Istanbul, Pompeo would not comment on whether the Saudi journalist was dead or alive, but there is little doubt now among US officials that he was assassinated.
Some of the 15-strong Saudi hit team that flew to Istanbul and lay in wait for Khashoggi in the consulate, are members of the crown prince’s entourage.
The team arrived on on two Gulfstream jets that flew in to Istanbul on October 2, the day of Khashoggi’s disappearance and returned to Riyadh on October 3.
The planes belonged to an aviation company that was seized by the Saudi government last year.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that four of the men identified by Turkish media as part of a 15-man hit squad sent from Riyadh to silence Khashoggi were members of Bin Salman’s personal security detail.
Tubaigy, holds a senior position in the Saudi interior ministry.
Before meeting Pompeo, Erdoğan had revealed signs of an attempted cover-up in the Saudi consulate, saying police had found freshly painted walls and “toxic” substances during a search of the building.
Çavuşoğlu described the two 40-minute meetings with Pompeo as “beneficial and fruitful”.
After their conversation, Pompeo did not reveal what Erdoğan had told him about the investigation, other than to claim the Saudis were cooperating fully after “a couple of delays”.
“He made clear that the Saudis had cooperated with the investigation that the Turks are engaged in, and that they are going to share information that they learned with the Saudis as well,” Pompeo said.
“There had been a couple of delays but they seemed pretty confident that the Saudis would permit them to do the things they needed to do to complete their thorough and complete investigation.”
Pompeo has attracted fierce criticism for his seemingly jovial meeting on Tuesday with the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Several of Bin Salman’s security detail have been identified in press reports as members of the hit squad alleged to have murdered Khashoggi in the consulate.
Asked whether the Saudis had told him whether Khashoggi was dead or alive, Pompeo replied: “I don’t want to talk about any of the facts."
"They didn’t want to either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way.”
Pompeo also claimed there was serious commitment in Riyadh to “determine all the facts and ensure accountability”.
After his meetings with the Turkish leadership, Pompeo said it was reasonable to give the Saudis more time to do so.
“It’s not about benefit of the doubt,” Pompeo said.
“It’s that it is reasonable to give them a handful of days more to complete that so they get it right so that it’s thorough and complete and that’s what they’ve indicated they need and I’m hopeful that we’ll get to see it.”
However, he made clear that the Trump administration would take the broader US relationship with the Saudi regime into account in deciding how to respond to the Khashoggi case.
“I do think it’s important that everyone keeps in their mind that we have a lot of important relationships – financial relationships between US and Saudi companies, governmental relationships – things we work on together all across the world."
"The efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of America from the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, Iran,” Pompeo said.
“The Saudis have been great partners in working alongside us on those issues …"
"And we just need to make sure that we are mindful of that as we approach decisions that the United States government will take.”
But the suspects’ direct links to the Saudi establishment weaken the suggestion made by Trump that the alleged murder could have been carried out by “rogue killers” in an unauthorised operation.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jam ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
YEAH, RIGHT, POMPOUS, SOUNDS LIKE A COVER-UP TO ME …
A STALL FOR TIME ...
POLITICO
"Pompeo pushes to give Saudis more time for Khashoggi investigation - The secretary of state says people should be ‘mindful’ that Saudi Arabia is a strategic U.S. partner."
By JESUS RODRIGUEZ
10/18/2018 11:21 AM EDT
Updated 10/18/2018 12:59 PM EDT
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he told President Donald Trump to give Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to complete its probe into the disappearance and alleged murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
Trump dispatched Pompeo to Riyadh earlier this week for talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince.
The secretary has taken heat for his amiable interactions with the monarch after images were released of Pompeo smiling with him on camera.
Pompeo told reporters that the Saudis assured him they would conduct a thorough and transparent investigation and would make the results available to the public.
"This report itself will be transparent for everyone to see, to ask questions about …"
"I told President Trump we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we, too, have a complete understanding of the facts surrounding that — at which point, we can make decisions about how or if the United States should respond to the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi," Pompeo said on Thursday.
Turkish officials have told U.S. media outlets that Khashoggi was dismembered alive and beheaded by a team of Saudis inside the consulate and that audio evidence of his death exists.
Trump has requested audio or video intelligence, though he has cast doubt on whether it exists.
As other members of the administration have done in the past two weeks, Pompeo on Thursday pivoted to a "long, strategic relationship" with Saudi Arabia to deflect what has been a cacophony of calls to action against the Middle Eastern kingdom.
"They continue to be an important counterterrorism partner."
"They have custody of the two holy sites."
"They're an important strategic alliance of the United States," Pompeo told reporters.
"We need to be mindful of that as well."
Even as Pompeo urged patience with the Saudis, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced he would pull out of a Saudi investment conference dubbed "Davos in the Desert" that was scheduled for next week.
Mnuchin had been under pressure for days to cancel the trip, especially as a growing number of business leaders, entrepreneurs and media outlets said they would not attend the conference.
"Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia," Mnuchin wrote on Twitter.
Public outcry has mounted on Pompeo for being seemingly being overly trustworthy of the powerful crown prince, who denies any kind of knowledge about Khashoggi's whereabouts.
Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress have chastised the administration for not outwardly pressuring Saudi Arabia enough for answers, raising the possibility of imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia if they are found to be responsible for Khashoggi's death.
In a much-criticized exchange with reporters about his meeting before departing Riyadh, Pompeo resisted revealing any details of the ongoing Saudi investigation.
"I don’t want to talk about any of the facts," Pompeo said.
"They didn’t want to either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way."
And on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that just as Pompeo landed in Riyadh for his meeting with the Saudi royals, the Saudis deposited a payment of $100 million in U.S. accounts for "American efforts to stabilize areas in Syria liberated from the Islamic State."
But CNN also reported Thursday that behind closed doors, Pompeo had a tense conversation with the crown prince, telling him that Saudi Arabia had to own the situation because his future as king depended on it.
Asked by reporters why the Saudis should be trusted to conduct an impartial investigation, Pompeo said on Thursday that the public will eventually get a chance to judge the results.
"We're all going to get to see the work, the response that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia takes with this," Pompeo said.
"When we see that, we'll get a chance to determine, all of us will get to make a determination with respect to the credibility and the work that went into that — whether it's truly accurate, fair, transparent in the very way they made a personal commitment to me, and the crown prince also made a personal commitment to the president when he spoke to him."
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/ ... ion-912530
A STALL FOR TIME ...
POLITICO
"Pompeo pushes to give Saudis more time for Khashoggi investigation - The secretary of state says people should be ‘mindful’ that Saudi Arabia is a strategic U.S. partner."
By JESUS RODRIGUEZ
10/18/2018 11:21 AM EDT
Updated 10/18/2018 12:59 PM EDT
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he told President Donald Trump to give Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to complete its probe into the disappearance and alleged murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
Trump dispatched Pompeo to Riyadh earlier this week for talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince.
The secretary has taken heat for his amiable interactions with the monarch after images were released of Pompeo smiling with him on camera.
Pompeo told reporters that the Saudis assured him they would conduct a thorough and transparent investigation and would make the results available to the public.
"This report itself will be transparent for everyone to see, to ask questions about …"
"I told President Trump we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we, too, have a complete understanding of the facts surrounding that — at which point, we can make decisions about how or if the United States should respond to the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi," Pompeo said on Thursday.
Turkish officials have told U.S. media outlets that Khashoggi was dismembered alive and beheaded by a team of Saudis inside the consulate and that audio evidence of his death exists.
Trump has requested audio or video intelligence, though he has cast doubt on whether it exists.
As other members of the administration have done in the past two weeks, Pompeo on Thursday pivoted to a "long, strategic relationship" with Saudi Arabia to deflect what has been a cacophony of calls to action against the Middle Eastern kingdom.
"They continue to be an important counterterrorism partner."
"They have custody of the two holy sites."
"They're an important strategic alliance of the United States," Pompeo told reporters.
"We need to be mindful of that as well."
Even as Pompeo urged patience with the Saudis, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced he would pull out of a Saudi investment conference dubbed "Davos in the Desert" that was scheduled for next week.
Mnuchin had been under pressure for days to cancel the trip, especially as a growing number of business leaders, entrepreneurs and media outlets said they would not attend the conference.
"Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia," Mnuchin wrote on Twitter.
Public outcry has mounted on Pompeo for being seemingly being overly trustworthy of the powerful crown prince, who denies any kind of knowledge about Khashoggi's whereabouts.
Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress have chastised the administration for not outwardly pressuring Saudi Arabia enough for answers, raising the possibility of imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia if they are found to be responsible for Khashoggi's death.
In a much-criticized exchange with reporters about his meeting before departing Riyadh, Pompeo resisted revealing any details of the ongoing Saudi investigation.
"I don’t want to talk about any of the facts," Pompeo said.
"They didn’t want to either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way."
And on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that just as Pompeo landed in Riyadh for his meeting with the Saudi royals, the Saudis deposited a payment of $100 million in U.S. accounts for "American efforts to stabilize areas in Syria liberated from the Islamic State."
But CNN also reported Thursday that behind closed doors, Pompeo had a tense conversation with the crown prince, telling him that Saudi Arabia had to own the situation because his future as king depended on it.
Asked by reporters why the Saudis should be trusted to conduct an impartial investigation, Pompeo said on Thursday that the public will eventually get a chance to judge the results.
"We're all going to get to see the work, the response that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia takes with this," Pompeo said.
"When we see that, we'll get a chance to determine, all of us will get to make a determination with respect to the credibility and the work that went into that — whether it's truly accurate, fair, transparent in the very way they made a personal commitment to me, and the crown prince also made a personal commitment to the president when he spoke to him."
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/ ... ion-912530
Re: TURKEY
THIS IS PURE HORSECRAP ...
POMPOUS IS STALLING FOR TIME, HOPING THIS WILL SOON GO AWAY …
NBC NEWS
"Pompeo says the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia 'a few more days' for Khashoggi investigation"
Lauren Egan
18 OCTOBER 2018
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday after meeting with President Trump at the White House that the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia several more days to "conduct a complete, thorough investigation" into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi before deciding on a response.
"There are lots of stories out there about what has happened."
"We are going to allow the process to move forward," Pompeo said at the White House after a morning meeting with the president.
"I told President Trump this morning we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we too have a complete understanding surrounding the facts that so at which point, we can make a decision how or if the United States should respond to the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi," he said.
Asked whether the Saudis, who have been accused of being responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance, could be trusted to investigate, Pompeo expressed confidence in the kingdom.
"We're all going to get to see the response from Saudi Arabia to this."
"When we see that, we'll get a chance to determine—all of us will get a chance to make a determination as to the credibility of the work that went into that, whether it's truly accurate, fair, and transparent in the very way they made a personal commitment to me, and ultimately made a personal commitment to the president when they spoke to him."
He added that Saudi Arabia was also "an important strategic alliance of the United States."
"We need to be mindful of that as well."
Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin confirmed on Twitter that after meeting with Trump and Pompeo Thursday morning, he would not be attending the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia as initially planned.
Many media organizations and business leaders had pulled out of the meeting following Khashoggi's disappearance.
Trump himself said after the meeting only, via Twitter, that he had met with Pompeo, and that the secretary "is waiting for the results of the investigations being done by the Saudis and Turkey, and just gave a news conference to that effect."
Pompeo met with President Trump Thursday for the first time since he returned from meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey earlier this week.
The secretary of state arrived in Turkey on Wednesday as alleged audio recordings of Saudi officials killing Khashoggi were made public, putting even more pressure on the White House to deliver a strong rebuke against the Crown Prince.
On Wednesday, Trump cast doubt on the leaked audio recordings, telling reporters he was "not sure yet that it exists," but that if it was, the U.S. had asked Turkey to share it.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Trump also compared Khashoggi's disappearance to the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump said.
"We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh, and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pom ... id=HPDHP17
POMPOUS IS STALLING FOR TIME, HOPING THIS WILL SOON GO AWAY …
NBC NEWS
"Pompeo says the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia 'a few more days' for Khashoggi investigation"
Lauren Egan
18 OCTOBER 2018
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday after meeting with President Trump at the White House that the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia several more days to "conduct a complete, thorough investigation" into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi before deciding on a response.
"There are lots of stories out there about what has happened."
"We are going to allow the process to move forward," Pompeo said at the White House after a morning meeting with the president.
"I told President Trump this morning we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we too have a complete understanding surrounding the facts that so at which point, we can make a decision how or if the United States should respond to the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi," he said.
Asked whether the Saudis, who have been accused of being responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance, could be trusted to investigate, Pompeo expressed confidence in the kingdom.
"We're all going to get to see the response from Saudi Arabia to this."
"When we see that, we'll get a chance to determine—all of us will get a chance to make a determination as to the credibility of the work that went into that, whether it's truly accurate, fair, and transparent in the very way they made a personal commitment to me, and ultimately made a personal commitment to the president when they spoke to him."
He added that Saudi Arabia was also "an important strategic alliance of the United States."
"We need to be mindful of that as well."
Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin confirmed on Twitter that after meeting with Trump and Pompeo Thursday morning, he would not be attending the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia as initially planned.
Many media organizations and business leaders had pulled out of the meeting following Khashoggi's disappearance.
Trump himself said after the meeting only, via Twitter, that he had met with Pompeo, and that the secretary "is waiting for the results of the investigations being done by the Saudis and Turkey, and just gave a news conference to that effect."
Pompeo met with President Trump Thursday for the first time since he returned from meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey earlier this week.
The secretary of state arrived in Turkey on Wednesday as alleged audio recordings of Saudi officials killing Khashoggi were made public, putting even more pressure on the White House to deliver a strong rebuke against the Crown Prince.
On Wednesday, Trump cast doubt on the leaked audio recordings, telling reporters he was "not sure yet that it exists," but that if it was, the U.S. had asked Turkey to share it.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Trump also compared Khashoggi's disappearance to the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump said.
"We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh, and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pom ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
THE WASHINGTON POST
"Trump says it appears that missing journalist Khashoggi is dead"
Erin Cunningham, John Wagner
19 OCTOBER 2018
ISTANBUL —President Trump said Thursday it appears that Jamal Khashoggi is dead and warned that his administration could consider “very severe” measures against Saudi Arabia, sharply raising pressures on the kingdom as it prepares its own accounting of the journalist’s disappearance.
Trump’s remarks reflect the vacillating strategies and views in the White House over its response and possible punishments toward one of its key Middle East allies.
Trump has said any U.S. actions over Khashoggi’s disappearance must take into account the security and defense ties the United States has with the kingdom.
But Trump also must contend with the international furor and calls within Republican ranks to take a harder line on Saudi Arabia.
As he boarded a flight to Montana for a political rally, Trump was asked by a journalist whether he believed Khashoggi was dead.
“It certainly looks that way to me,” he said.
“It’s very sad.”
He added that Saudi Arabia could face a “very severe” U.S. response depending on the results of probes that include a self-run investigation by the kingdom into the disappearance of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Washington Post contributing columnist, was last seen in public entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
“I mean, it’s bad, bad stuff."
"But we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
The United States is caught squarely between two long-standing partners.
Turkish officials say evidence indicated that Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents.
Saudi leaders deny having any knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate but promised to conduct their own inquiry into the case.
It is uncertain, however, whether a self-run inquest or conclusions by the Saudis could quell international anger over Khashoggi’s disappearance.
And any finding by Saudi Arabia could meet immediate skepticism about a country where the rulers typically are involved in every major decision.
A person close to the White House said Saudi officials are considering blaming Khashoggi’s death on Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy head of Saudi intelligence and a close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Assiri would be accused of mounting a rogue operation to kill Khashoggi, which would deflect blame from the crown prince, who is the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the administration or the Saudi government.
Assiri did not immediately respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
Before his intelligence posting, Assiri served for two years as the public face of Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in the war in Yemen.
Assiri, who speaks fluent French and English, held regular news briefings on the state of the battle that were unusual for the Middle East and appeared designed to promote the professionalism of the Saudi war effort.
But as the Saudi aerial bombing campaign came under intensifying criticism for what human rights groups said was a reckless attitude toward civilian casualties, Assiri’s responses to questions about the civilian toll only reinforced the sense that the Saudis were being cavalier.
“Why would we acknowledge something that doesn’t exist?” he said when asked by a reporter in 2015 about whether Saudi-led coalition strikes had killed noncombatants, despite mounting evidence that they had.
Assiri was replaced as spokesman in July 2017, according to the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel.
Trump said the White House expected to have a Saudi account of the Khashoggi case “very soon.”
“And I think we’ll be making a statement, a very strong statement."
"But, we’re waiting for the results of about three different investigations, and we should be able to get to the bottom fairly soon,” said Trump, apparently referring to inquiries by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday afternoon, Trump expressed confidence in intelligence reports from multiple sources that strongly suggest a high-level Saudi role in Khashoggi’s assassination.
“Unless the miracle of all miracles happens, I would acknowledge that he’s dead,” Trump said.
“That’s based on everything — intelligence coming from every side.”
The comments also point to a possible tougher stance by the White House after it sent a range of conflicting signals.
In the past week, Trump left open the idea that “rogue killers” had carried out an attack on Khashoggi, and also warned against a rush to judgment about the Saudi rulers.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who has cultivated a relationship with Mohammed, has been urging Trump to stand by the Saudis and let them conduct their own investigation, according to two people in regular contact with the White House.
Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the White House to allow “a few more days” for Saudi Arabia to issue its own report on Khashoggi, even as Turkish police sharply expanded their investigation.
Turkish authorities said they will search at least two rural areas outside Istanbul, local news agencies and a Turkish official said.
But in the administration’s first formal rebuke of Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi case, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that he would join many other political leaders and business executives who are canceling their participation in a major investment forum next week in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Mnuchin made the announcement after consulting with Trump and Pompeo.
Hours earlier, finance chiefs from France, Britain and the Netherlands announced that they would not attend the Riyadh conference.
Trump eventually signed off on Mnuchin’s skipping the conference.
“You can’t give a Good Housekeeping seal of approval to the Saudis by letting Mnuchin go to the conference,” said one administration adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
Asked why the Saudis should be trusted to conduct a fair investigation, Pompeo — who held talks this week in Riyadh and in the Turkish capital, Ankara — said only that U.S. officials would evaluate the Saudi report as to whether “it’s truly accurate, fair and transparent” as promised during Pompeo’s talks in Riyadh.
In Turkey, meanwhile, police exploring the disappearance of 59-year-old Khashoggi — who they believe was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by a team of agents from Saudi Arabia — are reviewing security footage from the entrances to Istanbul’s Belgrad Forest, roughly 10 miles north of the city center, Turkish media reported.
They also expect to search farmland in Turkey’s Yalova province, which is about 60 miles from Istanbul.
A Turkish official confirmed that investigators had broadened their search for Khashoggi’s body to “gardens” around the Istanbul area.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the case.
Up until now, the inquiry has focused on the consulate in Istanbul’s Levent district and the nearby residence of the Saudi consul general, Mohammed al-Otaibi, who left Turkey this week.
Still, leaks from Turkish officials to foreign and local media outlets have kept the spotlight on the Khashoggi affair.
Turkey’s pro-government Sabah newspaper published Thursday what it said were images from closed-circuit television of Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb — an apparent member of the Saudi security services who may have previously traveled with the crown prince — outside the consulate on the day Khashoggi went missing.
Other images show Mutreb checking out of an Istanbul hotel and at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport hours after Khashoggi was last seen in public.
Mutreb also appears to have been photographed with the crown prince on trips to France, Spain and the United States.
A British document from 2007 lists a man by the same name working as a diplomat in London.
Turkish investigators have said they believe that Khashoggi was killed by a 15-man Saudi hit team soon after he entered the consulate on an administrative errand on Oct. 2 and that his body was dismembered.
On Thursday, investigators left the consulate after a second search of the grounds, Turkey’s private DHA news agency reported.
Turkey has not formally released any evidence to support its claims that a team of Saudi agents killed Khashoggi.
erin.cunningham@washpost.com
john.wagner@washpost.com
Wagner reported from Washington. Kareem Fahim and Zeynep Karatas in Istanbul and Josh Dawsey, Brian Murphy, Missy Ryan and Felicia Sonmez in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tru ... id=HPDHP17
"Trump says it appears that missing journalist Khashoggi is dead"
Erin Cunningham, John Wagner
19 OCTOBER 2018
ISTANBUL —President Trump said Thursday it appears that Jamal Khashoggi is dead and warned that his administration could consider “very severe” measures against Saudi Arabia, sharply raising pressures on the kingdom as it prepares its own accounting of the journalist’s disappearance.
Trump’s remarks reflect the vacillating strategies and views in the White House over its response and possible punishments toward one of its key Middle East allies.
Trump has said any U.S. actions over Khashoggi’s disappearance must take into account the security and defense ties the United States has with the kingdom.
But Trump also must contend with the international furor and calls within Republican ranks to take a harder line on Saudi Arabia.
As he boarded a flight to Montana for a political rally, Trump was asked by a journalist whether he believed Khashoggi was dead.
“It certainly looks that way to me,” he said.
“It’s very sad.”
He added that Saudi Arabia could face a “very severe” U.S. response depending on the results of probes that include a self-run investigation by the kingdom into the disappearance of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Washington Post contributing columnist, was last seen in public entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
“I mean, it’s bad, bad stuff."
"But we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
The United States is caught squarely between two long-standing partners.
Turkish officials say evidence indicated that Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents.
Saudi leaders deny having any knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate but promised to conduct their own inquiry into the case.
It is uncertain, however, whether a self-run inquest or conclusions by the Saudis could quell international anger over Khashoggi’s disappearance.
And any finding by Saudi Arabia could meet immediate skepticism about a country where the rulers typically are involved in every major decision.
A person close to the White House said Saudi officials are considering blaming Khashoggi’s death on Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy head of Saudi intelligence and a close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Assiri would be accused of mounting a rogue operation to kill Khashoggi, which would deflect blame from the crown prince, who is the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the administration or the Saudi government.
Assiri did not immediately respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
Before his intelligence posting, Assiri served for two years as the public face of Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in the war in Yemen.
Assiri, who speaks fluent French and English, held regular news briefings on the state of the battle that were unusual for the Middle East and appeared designed to promote the professionalism of the Saudi war effort.
But as the Saudi aerial bombing campaign came under intensifying criticism for what human rights groups said was a reckless attitude toward civilian casualties, Assiri’s responses to questions about the civilian toll only reinforced the sense that the Saudis were being cavalier.
“Why would we acknowledge something that doesn’t exist?” he said when asked by a reporter in 2015 about whether Saudi-led coalition strikes had killed noncombatants, despite mounting evidence that they had.
Assiri was replaced as spokesman in July 2017, according to the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel.
Trump said the White House expected to have a Saudi account of the Khashoggi case “very soon.”
“And I think we’ll be making a statement, a very strong statement."
"But, we’re waiting for the results of about three different investigations, and we should be able to get to the bottom fairly soon,” said Trump, apparently referring to inquiries by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday afternoon, Trump expressed confidence in intelligence reports from multiple sources that strongly suggest a high-level Saudi role in Khashoggi’s assassination.
“Unless the miracle of all miracles happens, I would acknowledge that he’s dead,” Trump said.
“That’s based on everything — intelligence coming from every side.”
The comments also point to a possible tougher stance by the White House after it sent a range of conflicting signals.
In the past week, Trump left open the idea that “rogue killers” had carried out an attack on Khashoggi, and also warned against a rush to judgment about the Saudi rulers.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who has cultivated a relationship with Mohammed, has been urging Trump to stand by the Saudis and let them conduct their own investigation, according to two people in regular contact with the White House.
Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the White House to allow “a few more days” for Saudi Arabia to issue its own report on Khashoggi, even as Turkish police sharply expanded their investigation.
Turkish authorities said they will search at least two rural areas outside Istanbul, local news agencies and a Turkish official said.
But in the administration’s first formal rebuke of Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi case, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that he would join many other political leaders and business executives who are canceling their participation in a major investment forum next week in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Mnuchin made the announcement after consulting with Trump and Pompeo.
Hours earlier, finance chiefs from France, Britain and the Netherlands announced that they would not attend the Riyadh conference.
Trump eventually signed off on Mnuchin’s skipping the conference.
“You can’t give a Good Housekeeping seal of approval to the Saudis by letting Mnuchin go to the conference,” said one administration adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
Asked why the Saudis should be trusted to conduct a fair investigation, Pompeo — who held talks this week in Riyadh and in the Turkish capital, Ankara — said only that U.S. officials would evaluate the Saudi report as to whether “it’s truly accurate, fair and transparent” as promised during Pompeo’s talks in Riyadh.
In Turkey, meanwhile, police exploring the disappearance of 59-year-old Khashoggi — who they believe was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by a team of agents from Saudi Arabia — are reviewing security footage from the entrances to Istanbul’s Belgrad Forest, roughly 10 miles north of the city center, Turkish media reported.
They also expect to search farmland in Turkey’s Yalova province, which is about 60 miles from Istanbul.
A Turkish official confirmed that investigators had broadened their search for Khashoggi’s body to “gardens” around the Istanbul area.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the case.
Up until now, the inquiry has focused on the consulate in Istanbul’s Levent district and the nearby residence of the Saudi consul general, Mohammed al-Otaibi, who left Turkey this week.
Still, leaks from Turkish officials to foreign and local media outlets have kept the spotlight on the Khashoggi affair.
Turkey’s pro-government Sabah newspaper published Thursday what it said were images from closed-circuit television of Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb — an apparent member of the Saudi security services who may have previously traveled with the crown prince — outside the consulate on the day Khashoggi went missing.
Other images show Mutreb checking out of an Istanbul hotel and at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport hours after Khashoggi was last seen in public.
Mutreb also appears to have been photographed with the crown prince on trips to France, Spain and the United States.
A British document from 2007 lists a man by the same name working as a diplomat in London.
Turkish investigators have said they believe that Khashoggi was killed by a 15-man Saudi hit team soon after he entered the consulate on an administrative errand on Oct. 2 and that his body was dismembered.
On Thursday, investigators left the consulate after a second search of the grounds, Turkey’s private DHA news agency reported.
Turkey has not formally released any evidence to support its claims that a team of Saudi agents killed Khashoggi.
erin.cunningham@washpost.com
john.wagner@washpost.com
Wagner reported from Washington. Kareem Fahim and Zeynep Karatas in Istanbul and Josh Dawsey, Brian Murphy, Missy Ryan and Felicia Sonmez in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tru ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Saudi Explanation of Jamal Khashoggi’s Killing Fails to Squelch Skepticism"
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and BEN HUBBARD
20 OCTOBER 2018
Saudi Arabia’s explanation of why its agents had strangled the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul was met with a flood of international skepticism on Saturday, even as President Trump said this new account that he was killed after a fistfight sounded credible.
A Saudi official offered the kingdom’s first explanation for the involvement of a doctor of forensic medicine specializing in autopsies — a critical detail adding to international doubts about the kingdom’s story.
The doctor was dispatched to erase fingerprints or other evidence if necessary, the official said, not to help dismember Mr. Khashoggi’s body in order to dispose of it after a premeditated assassination, as Turkish officials have charged.
The Saudis appeared to have bet heavily that they can persuade the world that Mr. Khashoggi, a bespectacled 60-year-old writer, was strangled only after he had engaged in a fistfight with a team of Saudi agents at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
In their latest version of events, they insisted that the agents had flown to Istanbul to carry out a mission without any specific authorization or even the knowledge of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, 33, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The credibility of the new account could determine the continued willingness of Western powers to work closely with Prince Mohammed, who has seized power in the kingdom more tightly than any ruler in at least half a century.
The Trump administration has embraced him as the central pillar of its Middle East strategy — from containing Iranian influence to reaching a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
The new Saudi explanation of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance emerged only after more than two weeks of officials’ insisting that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate.
President Trump said he found the new Saudi account to be credible, even as lawmakers in both parties expressed deep skepticism.
The killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a resident of Virginia and a Washington Post columnist who left Saudi Arabia last year for voluntary exile, has spurred an extraordinary international backlash against the kingdom and the crown prince.
The storm of recrimination has far exceeded the public criticism the crown prince previously received for the kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister or for leading a catastrophic war in Yemen.
But King Salman on Saturday only reinforced his support for the crown prince, his favorite son, putting him in charge of an overhaul of Saudi intelligence services in response to the scandal.
Mr. Trump said that he was willing to accept the new Saudi account even as lawmakers in both American political parties expressed grave doubts.
They noted that the Saudi narrative was inconsistent with the conclusions of United States intelligence agencies and that the Saudis — including the crown prince — had depleted their credibility by maintaining for weeks that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate.
On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled that he, too, would reject the Saudi explanation.
“We will not allow things to remain covered,” Omer Celik, a spokesman for Mr. Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party, said in a report by the semiofficial Anadolu news agency.
“We will use all the opportunities that we have to reveal what happened, and this is the intention of our president.”
Turkish officials have said they have audio recordings and other evidence that could discredit the new Saudi account by showing that the team intended from the start to assassinate and dismember Mr. Khashoggi.
A key part of that evidence, the Turks say, is the presence of the doctor specializing in autopsies, Salah al-Tubaigy, who they say moved quickly and matter-of-factly to cut up the body.
He even suggested to the agents working with him that they listen to music as he did while they carried out the gruesome work, according to Turkey’s account.
A Turkish official familiar with the investigation has said that Dr. Tubaigy dismembered the body with a bone saw — a standard instrument used in autopsies — that he had brought for that purpose.
Turkish officials, however, have described that evidence only on the condition of anonymity.
The authorities have declined to share the recordings or other evidence with the public or even with American intelligence agencies, with whom they often work closely.
That reticence has raised questions about their ability to back up their statements, and skeptics have suggested that Mr. Erdogan may seek to avoid a full diplomatic rupture by reaching some accommodation with Saudi Arabia, an important regional power that has been both an ally and a rival to Turkey at times.
The senior Saudi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the kingdom’s investigation was continuing, said the doctor “was added to the team as a forensic expert.”
“In case the team’s presence was revealed and the operation was compromised,” the official said, Dr. Tubaigy was expected to remove incriminating evidence like fingerprints.
The official denied that the doctor brought a bone saw, as Turkish officials have said.
The Saudi official offered no explanation for why the doctor was a specialist in autopsies rather than, say, in fingerprints or other evidence.
On Saturday, the director of the Turkish Arab Media Association — who is close to Mr. Erdogan and had been a friend Mr. Khashoggi’s — described the Saudi account as “far from reality.”
The director, Turan Kislakci, called for a full accounting of the killing and urged the removal of the Saudi crown prince from power.
“This is not over."
"It’s just starting,” he said.
“We want Jamal’s murderers to be punished,” he added, including “the authority that gave the orders.”
Mr. Kislakci also demanded that the Saudis reveal the location of Mr. Khashoggi’s remains.
“Give Jamal back to us,” he said.
“Give him back so we can raise his funeral.”
Amid the skepticism, the Saudi government has sought to convey the impression of business as usual.
The Foreign Ministry tweeted a large photo of Prince Mohammed as the head of a high-level committee formed by the king to restructure the Saudi intelligence agency in the aftermath of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing.
The kingdom’s allies around the region — including Egypt and most of the Persian Gulf monarchs — expressed strong support for Saudi Arabia’s self-investigation.
Saudi officials, meanwhile, sought to distance Prince Mohammed from any responsibility for the killing even as they singled out one of his closest advisers as the culprit, Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy chief of intelligence.
The Saudi official said on Saturday that the kingdom’s intelligence agency had issued only a general order to retrieve dissidents in exile like Mr. Khashoggi, but had not specified the means to do so.
The Saudis’ internal investigation, the official said, had concluded that General Assiri, on his own, had put together a plan to bring back Mr. Khashoggi.
But although the crown prince had not explicitly ordered an abduction or assassination, the official asserted, “as the order went down the chain of command, the vagueness and aggressiveness increased,” and General Assiri and the team might have interpreted “return him to the kingdom” as instructions to kidnap Mr. Khashoggi.
It was not immediately clear how the planners of the mission obtained the use of two private charter jets from a company close to the crown prince and the Interior Ministry.
But the Saudi official acknowledged that 15 Saudis arrived in Istanbul on Oct. 2 — the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared inside the consulate — as the Turks have said.
The official said that the leaks from Turkish authorities had misidentified some of the 15 because of the spellings of their names or other details, but he did not disclose how many people were supposedly misidentified.
One member of the team, Gen. Maher Mutreb, was selected for the mission specifically because he knew Mr. Khashoggi.
General Mutreb, an intelligence officer, had worked with Mr. Khashoggi when both were stationed in the Saudi Embassy in London years ago, this person said.
The participation of General Mutreb, however, may also undercut the Saudi assertions that Prince Mohammed was unaware of the plan.
An investigation by The New York Times revealed that General Mutreb has frequently traveled with the crown prince in his entourage.
At least three other Saudis named as suspects by the Turks appear to have links to the crown prince as well.
The Saudi official said the 15 agents had been divided into three teams: one for logistical support and transportation; one for counter-surveillance and operational security; and another for the execution of the operation.
Another general in addition to General Mutreb was part of the team.
The official said that the team had initially sought to persuade Mr. Khashoggi to return home.
“He didn’t want to have the discussion, so more or less he tried to leave the room,” the official said.
The agents tried to stop him.
An altercation ensued.
Mr. Khashoggi started screaming, and one of the agents put him in a chokehold.
“That is how he died,” the official said.
“It didn’t last that long.”
The official offered no explanation for why Mr. Khashoggi would try to resist when he was overpowered.
The official also said that the Saudi authorities do not yet know what the agents did with the body.
“They say they gave it to one of their local collaborators to dispose of,” the official said, though he declined to disclose whether that “collaborator” was Saudi, Turkish or of another nationality.
The Saudis have announced 18 arrests in connection with the investigation, and the official said those arrests included the 15-member team, two consular workers and a driver.
General Assiri was not among those arrested, raising questions about what consequences he might face.
The official said the team had sought to hide Mr. Khashoggi’s killing from the crown prince.
The crown prince began asking questions after details appeared in the Turkish media, the official said.
But he offered no explanation for why it took two weeks before answers emerged.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sau ... id=HPDHP17
"Saudi Explanation of Jamal Khashoggi’s Killing Fails to Squelch Skepticism"
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and BEN HUBBARD
20 OCTOBER 2018
Saudi Arabia’s explanation of why its agents had strangled the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul was met with a flood of international skepticism on Saturday, even as President Trump said this new account that he was killed after a fistfight sounded credible.
A Saudi official offered the kingdom’s first explanation for the involvement of a doctor of forensic medicine specializing in autopsies — a critical detail adding to international doubts about the kingdom’s story.
The doctor was dispatched to erase fingerprints or other evidence if necessary, the official said, not to help dismember Mr. Khashoggi’s body in order to dispose of it after a premeditated assassination, as Turkish officials have charged.
The Saudis appeared to have bet heavily that they can persuade the world that Mr. Khashoggi, a bespectacled 60-year-old writer, was strangled only after he had engaged in a fistfight with a team of Saudi agents at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
In their latest version of events, they insisted that the agents had flown to Istanbul to carry out a mission without any specific authorization or even the knowledge of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, 33, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The credibility of the new account could determine the continued willingness of Western powers to work closely with Prince Mohammed, who has seized power in the kingdom more tightly than any ruler in at least half a century.
The Trump administration has embraced him as the central pillar of its Middle East strategy — from containing Iranian influence to reaching a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
The new Saudi explanation of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance emerged only after more than two weeks of officials’ insisting that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate.
President Trump said he found the new Saudi account to be credible, even as lawmakers in both parties expressed deep skepticism.
The killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a resident of Virginia and a Washington Post columnist who left Saudi Arabia last year for voluntary exile, has spurred an extraordinary international backlash against the kingdom and the crown prince.
The storm of recrimination has far exceeded the public criticism the crown prince previously received for the kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister or for leading a catastrophic war in Yemen.
But King Salman on Saturday only reinforced his support for the crown prince, his favorite son, putting him in charge of an overhaul of Saudi intelligence services in response to the scandal.
Mr. Trump said that he was willing to accept the new Saudi account even as lawmakers in both American political parties expressed grave doubts.
They noted that the Saudi narrative was inconsistent with the conclusions of United States intelligence agencies and that the Saudis — including the crown prince — had depleted their credibility by maintaining for weeks that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate.
On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled that he, too, would reject the Saudi explanation.
“We will not allow things to remain covered,” Omer Celik, a spokesman for Mr. Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party, said in a report by the semiofficial Anadolu news agency.
“We will use all the opportunities that we have to reveal what happened, and this is the intention of our president.”
Turkish officials have said they have audio recordings and other evidence that could discredit the new Saudi account by showing that the team intended from the start to assassinate and dismember Mr. Khashoggi.
A key part of that evidence, the Turks say, is the presence of the doctor specializing in autopsies, Salah al-Tubaigy, who they say moved quickly and matter-of-factly to cut up the body.
He even suggested to the agents working with him that they listen to music as he did while they carried out the gruesome work, according to Turkey’s account.
A Turkish official familiar with the investigation has said that Dr. Tubaigy dismembered the body with a bone saw — a standard instrument used in autopsies — that he had brought for that purpose.
Turkish officials, however, have described that evidence only on the condition of anonymity.
The authorities have declined to share the recordings or other evidence with the public or even with American intelligence agencies, with whom they often work closely.
That reticence has raised questions about their ability to back up their statements, and skeptics have suggested that Mr. Erdogan may seek to avoid a full diplomatic rupture by reaching some accommodation with Saudi Arabia, an important regional power that has been both an ally and a rival to Turkey at times.
The senior Saudi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the kingdom’s investigation was continuing, said the doctor “was added to the team as a forensic expert.”
“In case the team’s presence was revealed and the operation was compromised,” the official said, Dr. Tubaigy was expected to remove incriminating evidence like fingerprints.
The official denied that the doctor brought a bone saw, as Turkish officials have said.
The Saudi official offered no explanation for why the doctor was a specialist in autopsies rather than, say, in fingerprints or other evidence.
On Saturday, the director of the Turkish Arab Media Association — who is close to Mr. Erdogan and had been a friend Mr. Khashoggi’s — described the Saudi account as “far from reality.”
The director, Turan Kislakci, called for a full accounting of the killing and urged the removal of the Saudi crown prince from power.
“This is not over."
"It’s just starting,” he said.
“We want Jamal’s murderers to be punished,” he added, including “the authority that gave the orders.”
Mr. Kislakci also demanded that the Saudis reveal the location of Mr. Khashoggi’s remains.
“Give Jamal back to us,” he said.
“Give him back so we can raise his funeral.”
Amid the skepticism, the Saudi government has sought to convey the impression of business as usual.
The Foreign Ministry tweeted a large photo of Prince Mohammed as the head of a high-level committee formed by the king to restructure the Saudi intelligence agency in the aftermath of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing.
The kingdom’s allies around the region — including Egypt and most of the Persian Gulf monarchs — expressed strong support for Saudi Arabia’s self-investigation.
Saudi officials, meanwhile, sought to distance Prince Mohammed from any responsibility for the killing even as they singled out one of his closest advisers as the culprit, Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy chief of intelligence.
The Saudi official said on Saturday that the kingdom’s intelligence agency had issued only a general order to retrieve dissidents in exile like Mr. Khashoggi, but had not specified the means to do so.
The Saudis’ internal investigation, the official said, had concluded that General Assiri, on his own, had put together a plan to bring back Mr. Khashoggi.
But although the crown prince had not explicitly ordered an abduction or assassination, the official asserted, “as the order went down the chain of command, the vagueness and aggressiveness increased,” and General Assiri and the team might have interpreted “return him to the kingdom” as instructions to kidnap Mr. Khashoggi.
It was not immediately clear how the planners of the mission obtained the use of two private charter jets from a company close to the crown prince and the Interior Ministry.
But the Saudi official acknowledged that 15 Saudis arrived in Istanbul on Oct. 2 — the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared inside the consulate — as the Turks have said.
The official said that the leaks from Turkish authorities had misidentified some of the 15 because of the spellings of their names or other details, but he did not disclose how many people were supposedly misidentified.
One member of the team, Gen. Maher Mutreb, was selected for the mission specifically because he knew Mr. Khashoggi.
General Mutreb, an intelligence officer, had worked with Mr. Khashoggi when both were stationed in the Saudi Embassy in London years ago, this person said.
The participation of General Mutreb, however, may also undercut the Saudi assertions that Prince Mohammed was unaware of the plan.
An investigation by The New York Times revealed that General Mutreb has frequently traveled with the crown prince in his entourage.
At least three other Saudis named as suspects by the Turks appear to have links to the crown prince as well.
The Saudi official said the 15 agents had been divided into three teams: one for logistical support and transportation; one for counter-surveillance and operational security; and another for the execution of the operation.
Another general in addition to General Mutreb was part of the team.
The official said that the team had initially sought to persuade Mr. Khashoggi to return home.
“He didn’t want to have the discussion, so more or less he tried to leave the room,” the official said.
The agents tried to stop him.
An altercation ensued.
Mr. Khashoggi started screaming, and one of the agents put him in a chokehold.
“That is how he died,” the official said.
“It didn’t last that long.”
The official offered no explanation for why Mr. Khashoggi would try to resist when he was overpowered.
The official also said that the Saudi authorities do not yet know what the agents did with the body.
“They say they gave it to one of their local collaborators to dispose of,” the official said, though he declined to disclose whether that “collaborator” was Saudi, Turkish or of another nationality.
The Saudis have announced 18 arrests in connection with the investigation, and the official said those arrests included the 15-member team, two consular workers and a driver.
General Assiri was not among those arrested, raising questions about what consequences he might face.
The official said the team had sought to hide Mr. Khashoggi’s killing from the crown prince.
The crown prince began asking questions after details appeared in the Turkish media, the official said.
But he offered no explanation for why it took two weeks before answers emerged.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sau ... id=HPDHP17
Re: TURKEY
BLOOMBERG
"Allies Doubt the Shifting Saudi Story and Even Trump Is Citing ‘Lies’"
Marc Champion and Saleha Mohsin
21 OCTOBER 2018
(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s evolving account of the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi -- which the kingdom’s foreign minister on Sunday cast as a “tremendous mistake” been perpetrated by a “rogue operation” -- elicited skepticism from officials in the U.S. and its allies weighing how to respond.
France demanded more information, while Germany put arms sales to the oil-rich nation on hold.
In the U.S., the Trump administration stressed the vital importance of the kingdom and its economy to the U.S. while Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they suspected knowledge of the killing reached the highest levels of the Saudi regime.
More than two weeks after Khashoggi disappeared, Saudi Arabia acknowledged over the weekend that the Washington Post contributor was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2, characterizing his death as accidental.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the killing was carried out by a “rogue operation” that then tried to cover it up.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had had no knowledge of the plot, he said.
“This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had,” al-Jubeir said in an interview on Fox News.
“They made the mistake when they killed Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate and they tried to cover up for it.”
The dramatic reversal -- Saudi officials had previously said the columnist left the building alive -- seems only to have complicated the issue for allies.
In Sunday radio and TV interviews, Dominic Raab, the U.K. politician in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union, described the latest Saudi account as not credible; French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called for “the truth’’; and Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his government would approve no arms sales so long as the investigation was ongoing.
Saudi Arabia is an important market for all three countries.
On Sunday, they also issued a joint statement, saying the Saudi investigation’s “hypotheses” would “need to be backed by facts to be considered credible.”
‘Deception and Lies’
In an interview with The Washington Post, President Donald Trump, too, said the Saudi narrative had been marked by “deception and lies.’’
Yet he also defended the crown prince as a “strong person’’ and said there was no proof of his involvement in Khashoggi’s death.
Some members of Congress have questioned his willingness to exonerate the prince.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to disclose details about the case at a meeting of his AK Party’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday, Haberturk newspaper reported.
Behind the rhetoric lie tough choices that the U.S. and other governments will have to make, between longstanding economic and defense ties to the kingdom and concern that failure to impose consequences on the slaying would give a green light for authoritarian regimes to kill inconvenient journalists and opponents worldwide.
“We have a longstanding relationship with Saudi that dates back to a long period of time,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters in Jerusalem, during the first stop on a six-country Middle East swing that will include a visit to Riyadh.
“We will continue in that relationship while we also simultaneously get to the bottom of what the facts are about the Khashoggi situation, which obviously is a terrible situation.”
‘Not Enough’
The Treasury chief -- who canceled his participation in a Saudi investment conference this week -- said that while the world seeks answers as to what happened to Khashoggi, “the information that’s coming out is a good first step, but it’s obviously not enough.”
In the meantime, Russian businesses are flocking to attend the investment forum in Saudi Arabia, as Western counterparts pull out.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has had considerable success boosting Moscow’s influence in the Middle East at U.S. expense, by standing by regimes that fall afoul of the West, including in Syria and Iran.
Last week Putin signed a strategic and partnership agreement with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, backed by $25 billion in loans to build nuclear reactors.
Until El-Sisi came to power, Egypt had been closely allied to the U.S.
Uproar in Congress
According to the latest Saudi account, “discussions’’ of Khashoggi’s status turned violent at the consulate.
He died after being placed in a choke hold, a person with knowledge of the Saudi probe said.
That conflicts with reports from Turkish officials, who say a Saudi hit team flew in specifically to kill and dismember him.
According to a New York Times report, some members of the group had close ties to the crown prince.
The killing has sparked bipartisan outrage in Congress over Saudi Arabia’s role, creating a divide between Capitol Hill and the White House ahead of November’s mid-term elections.
Mnuchin said it would be “premature to comment on sanctions” related to the killing until “we’ve gotten to the bottom of what’s occurred.”
Terrorism Financing
If Trump has a message for Saudi officials related to the investigation of Khashoggi’s killing, Mnuchin said he would deliver it.
He said discussions with the Saudis would focus on stopping terrorism financing.
Trump has strengthened ties with Saudi Arabia, which he sees as an essential player in advancing his Middle East policy.
In the Washington Post interview, he stressed again the importance of Saudi Arabia to his policy of pressuring Iran -- a regime he described as “evil.’’
Trump also says the incident shouldn’t jeopardize U.S. weapon sales to Saudi Arabia or other potential investments, which he says are worth a total of $450 billion.
The president told reporters soon after the Saudi statement was published that “it’s a great first step."
"I think we’re getting close to solving a very big problem.”
Later Saturday, speaking to reporters in Nevada, he said it was a concern that Khashoggi’s body is missing but reiterated that the journalist’s killing shouldn’t affect broader ties with the kingdom.
Had to Know
Congressional leaders on Sunday dismissed the story proffered earlier by the Saudis, with Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bob Corker of Tennessee saying they believed the crown prince was likely involved in Khashoggi’s death.
Lawmakers said they believe the U.S. must impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia or take other action if the crown prince is shown to have been involved.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. should be formally expelled until a third-party investigation is done.
He said the U.S. should call on its allies to do the same.
“Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world are going to reject this conduct and make sure that they pay a price for it, they’ll continue doing it,” Durbin said.
18 Detained
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman removed a top adviser to Prince Mohammed and prosecutors have detained 18 people involved in the case.
Trump said Saturday he would be talking to Prince Mohammed soon.
Mnuchin is spending the week in the region with visits including Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Jordan and Kuwait.
The objective is to talk through enforcement of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, which go into effect Nov. 4.
The Trump administration in May withdrew from a multi power nuclear agreement with Iran and is phasing in economic sanctions lifted under the 2015 accord signed during the Obama administration.
“We have an important relationship with Saudi focused on terrorist financing and focused on our common interests in stopping Iran’s spread of terrorism and other issues,” Mnuchin said.
(An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of Dominic Raab in the fourth paragraph.)
(Updates with Saudi foreign minister the first paragraph.)
--With assistance from Ryan Beene.
To contact the reporters on this story: Marc Champion in London at mchampion7@bloomberg.net;Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Mark Niquette, Ros Krasny
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/all ... id=HPDHP17
"Allies Doubt the Shifting Saudi Story and Even Trump Is Citing ‘Lies’"
Marc Champion and Saleha Mohsin
21 OCTOBER 2018
(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s evolving account of the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi -- which the kingdom’s foreign minister on Sunday cast as a “tremendous mistake” been perpetrated by a “rogue operation” -- elicited skepticism from officials in the U.S. and its allies weighing how to respond.
France demanded more information, while Germany put arms sales to the oil-rich nation on hold.
In the U.S., the Trump administration stressed the vital importance of the kingdom and its economy to the U.S. while Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they suspected knowledge of the killing reached the highest levels of the Saudi regime.
More than two weeks after Khashoggi disappeared, Saudi Arabia acknowledged over the weekend that the Washington Post contributor was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2, characterizing his death as accidental.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the killing was carried out by a “rogue operation” that then tried to cover it up.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had had no knowledge of the plot, he said.
“This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had,” al-Jubeir said in an interview on Fox News.
“They made the mistake when they killed Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate and they tried to cover up for it.”
The dramatic reversal -- Saudi officials had previously said the columnist left the building alive -- seems only to have complicated the issue for allies.
In Sunday radio and TV interviews, Dominic Raab, the U.K. politician in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union, described the latest Saudi account as not credible; French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called for “the truth’’; and Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his government would approve no arms sales so long as the investigation was ongoing.
Saudi Arabia is an important market for all three countries.
On Sunday, they also issued a joint statement, saying the Saudi investigation’s “hypotheses” would “need to be backed by facts to be considered credible.”
‘Deception and Lies’
In an interview with The Washington Post, President Donald Trump, too, said the Saudi narrative had been marked by “deception and lies.’’
Yet he also defended the crown prince as a “strong person’’ and said there was no proof of his involvement in Khashoggi’s death.
Some members of Congress have questioned his willingness to exonerate the prince.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to disclose details about the case at a meeting of his AK Party’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday, Haberturk newspaper reported.
Behind the rhetoric lie tough choices that the U.S. and other governments will have to make, between longstanding economic and defense ties to the kingdom and concern that failure to impose consequences on the slaying would give a green light for authoritarian regimes to kill inconvenient journalists and opponents worldwide.
“We have a longstanding relationship with Saudi that dates back to a long period of time,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters in Jerusalem, during the first stop on a six-country Middle East swing that will include a visit to Riyadh.
“We will continue in that relationship while we also simultaneously get to the bottom of what the facts are about the Khashoggi situation, which obviously is a terrible situation.”
‘Not Enough’
The Treasury chief -- who canceled his participation in a Saudi investment conference this week -- said that while the world seeks answers as to what happened to Khashoggi, “the information that’s coming out is a good first step, but it’s obviously not enough.”
In the meantime, Russian businesses are flocking to attend the investment forum in Saudi Arabia, as Western counterparts pull out.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has had considerable success boosting Moscow’s influence in the Middle East at U.S. expense, by standing by regimes that fall afoul of the West, including in Syria and Iran.
Last week Putin signed a strategic and partnership agreement with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, backed by $25 billion in loans to build nuclear reactors.
Until El-Sisi came to power, Egypt had been closely allied to the U.S.
Uproar in Congress
According to the latest Saudi account, “discussions’’ of Khashoggi’s status turned violent at the consulate.
He died after being placed in a choke hold, a person with knowledge of the Saudi probe said.
That conflicts with reports from Turkish officials, who say a Saudi hit team flew in specifically to kill and dismember him.
According to a New York Times report, some members of the group had close ties to the crown prince.
The killing has sparked bipartisan outrage in Congress over Saudi Arabia’s role, creating a divide between Capitol Hill and the White House ahead of November’s mid-term elections.
Mnuchin said it would be “premature to comment on sanctions” related to the killing until “we’ve gotten to the bottom of what’s occurred.”
Terrorism Financing
If Trump has a message for Saudi officials related to the investigation of Khashoggi’s killing, Mnuchin said he would deliver it.
He said discussions with the Saudis would focus on stopping terrorism financing.
Trump has strengthened ties with Saudi Arabia, which he sees as an essential player in advancing his Middle East policy.
In the Washington Post interview, he stressed again the importance of Saudi Arabia to his policy of pressuring Iran -- a regime he described as “evil.’’
Trump also says the incident shouldn’t jeopardize U.S. weapon sales to Saudi Arabia or other potential investments, which he says are worth a total of $450 billion.
The president told reporters soon after the Saudi statement was published that “it’s a great first step."
"I think we’re getting close to solving a very big problem.”
Later Saturday, speaking to reporters in Nevada, he said it was a concern that Khashoggi’s body is missing but reiterated that the journalist’s killing shouldn’t affect broader ties with the kingdom.
Had to Know
Congressional leaders on Sunday dismissed the story proffered earlier by the Saudis, with Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bob Corker of Tennessee saying they believed the crown prince was likely involved in Khashoggi’s death.
Lawmakers said they believe the U.S. must impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia or take other action if the crown prince is shown to have been involved.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. should be formally expelled until a third-party investigation is done.
He said the U.S. should call on its allies to do the same.
“Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world are going to reject this conduct and make sure that they pay a price for it, they’ll continue doing it,” Durbin said.
18 Detained
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman removed a top adviser to Prince Mohammed and prosecutors have detained 18 people involved in the case.
Trump said Saturday he would be talking to Prince Mohammed soon.
Mnuchin is spending the week in the region with visits including Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Jordan and Kuwait.
The objective is to talk through enforcement of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, which go into effect Nov. 4.
The Trump administration in May withdrew from a multi power nuclear agreement with Iran and is phasing in economic sanctions lifted under the 2015 accord signed during the Obama administration.
“We have an important relationship with Saudi focused on terrorist financing and focused on our common interests in stopping Iran’s spread of terrorism and other issues,” Mnuchin said.
(An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of Dominic Raab in the fourth paragraph.)
(Updates with Saudi foreign minister the first paragraph.)
--With assistance from Ryan Beene.
To contact the reporters on this story: Marc Champion in London at mchampion7@bloomberg.net;Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Mark Niquette, Ros Krasny
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/all ... id=HPDHP17