CIA confirms MBS behind Khashoggi's death
The Central Intelligence
Agency has recently concluded that the Saudi crown prince,
Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), ordered the killing of the journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, according to American officials.
The C.I.A. made the assessment based on the crown
prince’s control of Saudi Arabia, which is such that the killing would not have
taken place without his approval, and has buttressed its conclusion with two
sets of crucial communications: intercepts of the crown prince’s calls in the
days before the killing, and calls by the kill team to a senior aide to the
crown prince.
The C.I.A. has believed for weeks that Prince Mohammed was culpable in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing but
had been hesitant to definitively conclude that he directly ordered it. The
agency has passed that assessment on to lawmakers and Trump administration
officials.
The change in C.I.A. thinking came as new information
emerged, officials said. The evidence included an intercept showing a member of
the kill team calling an aide to Prince Mohammed and saying “tell your boss” that the mission was
accomplished. Officials cautioned, however, that the new information is not
direct evidence linking Prince Mohammed to the assassination, which was carried
out in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
The intercepts do show that
Prince Mohammed was trying to find ways to lure Mr. Khashoggi back to Saudi
Arabia, although the crown prince did not specifically say in the phone calls
that he wanted to have Mr. Khashoggi killed, according to people briefed on the
intelligence findings.
One former official said intelligence agencies were also
examining communications between Mr. Khashoggi and the Saudi ambassador to
Washington, Prince Khalid bin Salman, the brother of the crown prince.
Prince Khalid’s denial was unusually swift. In a Twitter
post on Friday, he said that “the last contact” he had with Mr. Khashoggi was
by text on Oct. 26, 2017, and that he never suggested that Mr. Khashoggi go to
Turkey.
“I never talked to him by phone and certainly never
suggested he go to Turkey for any reason,” he tweeted.
The C.I.A.’s assessment was first reported Friday by The
Washington Post. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.
The increasingly definitive assessment from the spy
agency creates a problem for President Trump, who has tied his administration
to Prince Mohammed and proclaimed him the future of Saudi Arabia, a longtime
American ally.
But the new assessment by the C.I.A. is sure to harden
the resolve of lawmakers on Capitol Hill to continue to investigate the killing
of Mr. Khashoggi and punish Saudi Arabia.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior
adviser, has been particularly close to Prince Mohammed. Mr. Kushner has long
advocated that a strong relationship with the Saudis is in the United States’
interest, and he has pushed to maintain support for the crown prince despite
the death of Mr. Khashoggi, who Saudi officials now say was killed with a
lethal dose of tranquilizers and dismembered. Previously, Saudi officials said
that Mr. Khashoggi had been strangled.
Neither administration officials nor intelligence
officers believe the controversy over Mr. Khashoggi will drive Prince Mohammed
from power, which is one reason White House officials believe cutting ties with
the prince would not be in the interest of the United States.
“It is one of those acts that must cause us to re-examine
the relationship and how much dependence we place on it,” said Representative
Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who is set to lead the House
Intelligence Committee next year.
Senate Republicans,
according to people briefed on their deliberations, want to see more decisive
steps from Saudi Arabia to try to defuse the crisis. One move that could blunt
tougher congressional action, they said, would be for Riyadh to release some dissidents,
including the leaders of the effort to allow Saudi women to drive.
Lawmakers are hoping to use the controversy over the
assassination to try to force an end to the Saudi war in Yemen, or at least the
American military support for it.
The United States has already announced that it would end
air-refueling flights for the Saudi Air Force over Yemen, and it has sanctioned
17 Saudis for their alleged involvement in the killing of Mr. Khashoggi.
Mr. Schiff said the Trump administration’s move to cut off
refueling for Saudi planes conducting airstrikes is more significant than the
sanctions.
“If we truly want to affect Saudi behavior, it is going
to be more important to focus on bringing an end to the campaign in Yemen than
these announcements of sanctions on these individuals we are unlikely to be
able to reach,” he said.
Mr. Schiff said he was pushing for a classified briefing
for the entire House on the war in Yemen and American support for the Saudi
campaign. Congressional Republicans have also said they would support such a
briefing.
Skepticism in Congress about the Saudis has grown as
Saudi officials have given multiple and conflicting accounts of what happened
in the consulate in Istanbul. This week, they announced they would seek the
death penalty against some of the perpetrators.
C.I.A. officials have long been unsure about Prince
Mohammed and his abilities to lead the kingdom. The agency, and its former
director, John O. Brennan, had a close relationship with Prince Mohammed’s
rival, Mohammed bin Nayef. The young crown prince outmaneuvered his rival in
2017 to consolidate his position.
Turkish officials made tape recordings of the killing of
Mr. Khashoggi in the consulate, and the Turkish government was the first to say
that it had definitive proof that Mr. Khashoggi was assassinated.
But Turkish official have stopped short of saying there
is definitive evidence of Prince Mohammed’s role in the death on the recordings
they have.
Correction: November 16, 2018
An earlier version of this article misstated
when Prince Khalid bin Salman last communicated with Jamal Khashoggi. It was in
October 2017, not this October.
Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti contributed
reporting.
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