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TURKEY-SAUDI-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-INTELLIGENCE
Saudi crown prince ordered op against missing journalist: report
WASHINGTON, Oct 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de
facto ruler ordered an operation targeting journalist and US resident Jamal
Khashoggi, who has been missing for more than a week, The Washington Post
reported Wednesday citing US intelligence intercepts.
Khashoggi — a US resident and one of the more outspoken critics of the
regime of King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman —
disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, and
Turkish officials suspect he was murdered.
The Post, a newspaper to which Khashoggi contributed, cited unnamed US
officials as saying that Saudi officials had been heard discussing a plan to
lure Khashoggi from the US state of Virginia, where he resided, and detain
him.
The paper quoted several of Khashoggi’s friends as saying that senior
Saudi officials had approached him offering protection, or even a high-level
government job, if he returned home — but that Khashoggi was skeptical of
the offers.
State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino earlier insisted that
the United States had no forewarning of any concrete threat to Khashoggi.
“Although I can’t go into intelligence matters, I can definitively say
that we had no knowledge in advance of Mr Khashoggi’s disappearance,”
Palladino told reporters.
The case has sparked outrage from human rights and journalism groups and
threatens to harm ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States, which has
demanded answers from the kingdom over the disappearance.
BSS/AFP/RY/08:25 hrs