A former Saudi official said yesterday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forged his father's signature on the royal decree that the beginning of the kingdom's years-long, dead-end war against Yemen's Houthi rebels, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
Saudi Arabia did not respond to questions about claims made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in a BBC interview published yesterday. Al Jabri later acknowledged the allegations separately in a statement to The Associated Press.
The kingdom described al-Jabri as a "discredited former government official”. Al Jabri, a former major general and intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been in a long-running dispute with the kingdom since his two children were jailed in what he described as an attempt to lure him back to Saudi Arabia . Al Jabri also claimed that the Crown Prince wanted to kill him.
"I am not a dissident, nor did I find myself in this situation by my own choice,” Al Jabri told AP. "I was a high-ranking Saudi official dedicated to the protection of my country, recognized as the savior of thousands of Saudi and Western lives. Now I am a father who is doing everything possible to secure the release of his children.“
His assertion comes as Prince Mohammed serves as Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, often meeting leaders in place of his father, 88-year-old King Salman.
Prince Mohammed's aggressive behavior, particularly early on in his rise to power around the start of the Yemen war in 2015, has extended to a wider crackdown on any dissent or power base that might challenge his rule.
Al Jabri first told the BBC that "reliable and secure” an official connected to the Saudi Ministry of Interior confirmed to him that Prince Mohammed signed the decree declaring war in place of his father. Prince Mohammed was the Minister of Defense at the time.
Al Jabri later told the AP that he had reached an agreement with his American counterparts in the then-Obama administration that Saudi Arabia would begin an "air bombardment campaign to eliminate the Houthi threat, establish deterrence and imposed a political process without land intervention”. Then his former boss, then Saudi Arabia's interior minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, chaired a meeting in Saudi Arabia where this plan was formalized.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, however, reacted with "visible displeasure” at that meeting and said he could defeat the Houthis in two months in a ground offensive, al-Jabri claimed.