Ex-Saudi official claims MBS forged king’s approval of war against Yemen’s Houthis

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (not pictured) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 20, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein / Pool / AFP)
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (not pictured) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 20, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein / Pool / AFP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A former Saudi official alleges in a report that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forged the signature of his father on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s yearslong, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the allegations made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in an interview published Monday by the BBC, though the kingdom has described him as “a discredited former government official.” Al-Jabri, a former Saudi intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been in a yearslong dispute with the kingdom as his two children have been imprisoned in a case he describes as trying to lure him back to Saudi Arabia.

The allegation comes as Prince Mohammed now serves as the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, often meeting leaders in place of his father, the 88-year-old King Salman. His assertive behavior, particularly at the start of his ascension to power around the beginning of the Yemen war in 2015, extended to a wider crackdown on any perceived dissent or power base that could challenge his rule.

In al-Jabri’s remarks to the BBC, he said a “credible, reliable” official linked to the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed to him that Prince Mohammed signed the royal decree declaring war in place of his father.

“We were surprised that there was a royal decree to allow the ground interventions,” al-Jabri tells the BBC. “He forged the signature of his dad for that royal decree. The king’s mental capacity was deteriorating.”

A US-based lawyer for al-Jabri did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Yemen war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, launched with promises by the prince it would quickly be over, has ground on for nearly a decade. The war has killed more than 150,000 people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, killing tens of thousands more. Prince Mohammed was the defense minister at the time.

The Houthis also since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip have launched attacks on shipping that have disrupted traffic through the Red Sea — and led to the most intense combat faced by the US Navy since World War II.

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