In kingdom, Saudi prince's coup 'fails'

Source: Press TV

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom's former ambassador to the United States, is reportedly under house arrest over a conspiracy against the monarch.

Saad al-Faqih, head of the opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, told Arab-language TV al-Alam that Prince Bandar has been disappeared and the media has published no word from the ex-diplomat's whereabouts since nearly three months ago.

According to al-Faqih, the prince first disappeared in Britain but he returned to the kingdom shortly afterwards.

He added that after Saudi officials discovered that he had provoked 200 agents working for the Saudi security service to stage a coup against King Abdullah, he was put under house arrest.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=102313§ionid=351020205

---

aka "Bandar Bush"

- K&R




/:sarcasm:

He had terrible taste in friends, too.

...but great jeans!!! :D

when Bush left office, he needed a new government to control.

Kiss Bandar goodbye.

I know the call goes out from time to time. And I think he checks in but isn't around as much.

He is a treasure.

Yikes.

...if everyone will just keep their heads.

- At least that's what the Prince keeps saying.....

Seems so cruel to part them.

This is really incredible news.

To provide a little background, from my rapidly failing memory/brain...

What we have here is a sort of gigantic family (blood) feud, which has been going on for about seven decades +.

Prince Bandar is the son of Crown Prince Sultan, one of the "Sudairi Seven." Or Sudairi Six, since King Fahd croaked in 2005. And maybe soon to become Sudairi Five, but that's not too likely, since Sultan runs the military forces. That could get interesting.

Anyway, the Sudairi Seven are the seven sons of the favorite wife of King Abdul-Aziz, the founder of...cough..."modern" Saudi Arabia. She came from the Sudairi tribe, hence the nickname.

The current king, Abdullah, had the bad luck to be born of a different mother and so is NOT a member of the favored Sudairi clan.

The Magic Kingdom could be headed toward a gigantic clusterf*ck like 1965, when Saudi Arabia's first TV station went on the air. Religious fundamentalists in the Saudi Army thought that was the Work of the Devil (tm), and seized the TV station in an attempted coup.

They were led by the nephew of the then-king, Faisal.

King Faisal declared that no one was above the law, not even the royal family. His nephew was killed when loyal government forces stormed the TV station.

Ten years later, that nephew's younger brother decided to repent for an up-to-then wasted life involving heavy drug use, alcohol, and crazy sex. And you can be pretty damn crazy when you represent one-quarter of the world's oil supply.

Nephew turned 180 degrees and became--I know you would have never guessed this--a militant Islamic fundamentalist.

As a grand gesture demonstrating his new commitment to faith and Islamic brotherhood, he assassinated the king - his uncle Faisal.

To repeat myself - this could get interesting.

And it will be required reading in Arabic secondary schools in the future.

I wonder what sort of phone calls have been ringing back and forth from the Magic Kingdom and the Bush compounds lately?

K&R

things enough, the RW M$M can use it to illustrate how badly President Obama and Hillary Clinton have botched things up. "This wouldn't have happened under the mature leadership of the Bush Administration." Just a prediction.

since the 1982 deal was struck with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and to fund many of the Kingdom's covert operations around the world. An estimated $80 billion have been diverted from arms sales from the British defence contractor BAE during that time.

Bandar has been under investigation and indictment in America and Britain on major influence peddling and bribery charges, but that's been pretty effectively hushed up by the corporate media.

Prince Bandar attempted to interfere with the British investigation into BAE. The U.K. High Court found that in July 2006, as the Serious Fraud Office was about to obtain access to Swiss bank accounts, "those described discreetly as 'Saudi representatives' a specific threat to the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell: if the investigation was not stopped there would be no contract for the export of Typhoon aircraft and the previous close intelligence and diplomatic relationship would cease."

And the U.K. Guardian reported that the two-judge High Court panel "heard unchallenged allegations that it was Prince Bandar, the alleged beneficiary of £1bn in secret payments from the arms giant BAE, who threatened to cut off intelligence on terrorists if the investigation into him and his family was not stopped. Investigators said they were given to understand there would be 'another 7/7' and the loss of 'British lives on British streets' if they carried on delving into the payments."

In addition, Bandar's personal assets inside the U.S. have been frozen by a federal court order since last summer. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/352

Looks like the Royal Family is cutting its loses. Does this mean that finally the US and UK will go after those who took all that money. Does that include these guys?



Every British Gov't since Thatcher has been corrupted by Saudi "Yamamah" slush-fund money. London is a city on the Arabian Penninsula. Of course, so is Washington, DC. See, also,

leveymg's Journal - Rove Linked to Multiple Major Criminal ...leveymg's Journal. Rove Linked to Multiple Major Criminal Investigations ... arms dealings and an $80 billion slush fund known as Yamamah (“The Dove”), ...
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/308 - 32k - Cached - Similar pages
More results from journals.democraticunderground.com »

Blair did secret deal with Saudis - Democratic Undergroundleveymg (1000+ posts) Journal · Click to send private message to this author ... The Al Yamamah deals go back over 20 years - to when Thatcher was in power, ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... - 81k - Cached - Similar pages
More results from www.democraticunderground.com »

And, yes, I DO take it personally: 06/03/2007 - 06/10/2007But in fact bills went to the al-Yamamah contract at the MoD under the misleading .... most disturbing was the opinion offered by leveymg at daily kos, ...
http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2007_06_03_archive... - 701k - Cached - Similar pages

acting on this own--more of an internal family power struggle, re: succession, than a larger coup d' etat, involving the Saudi military.

According to March 2009 British press reports, "Bandar, son of the heir to the Saudi throne, has not been seen in public for weeks, amid speculation of a dispute over Saudi Arabia's royal succession. Prince Bandar's father, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, 83, has been hospitalized in the U.S. for colon cancer, and it has resulted in speculation that Prince Bandar may be attempting to secure his place in the Royal family's succession, or may even be involved in a coup attempt against King Abdullah."

they usually aren't heard from again.

Interesting news.

He would not have tried anything without substantial support.

He probably thought he could outwit the old man, and with 200 internal security agents at his back, that was probably a reasonable assumption. My guess is that, unfortunately for him, one or more of those agents weren't the turncoats they appeared to be.

Maybe he's just hanging out in Bush's guest house.

Interesting rumor, but Bandar always seemed quite content to just globe trot, rub elbows with neo-cons, and spend his money.

I doubt this.

Bye bye, Bandar.

Discussion on a Similar situation in 2004:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x585824

On how dynasties rule and die out in about three generations (And the house of Saud is well in its third generations since its foundation in the 1930s):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x611956#612945

More threads on this subject:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3318528#3320642