Free Republic

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, one of the most widely recognized and respected Saudi officials in the world, gave a three-part interview to the government-controlled Al Arabiya news network and proceeded to tear down 70 years of myths about the leadership of the Palestinian national movement. Bandar spent 22 years as a Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and is known to speak for the government. It was an extraordinary series of interviews — a brutal assessment of the numerous self-inflicted wounds by Palestinian leaders going all the way back to the 1930s. It was broadcast in Arabic with English subtitles...

On the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a federal judge directed the Saudi Arabian government to make as many as 24 current and former officials available for depositions about their possible knowledge of events leading up to the airplane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which killed almost 3,000 Americans. Those officials include Prince Bandar, the former ambassador to the United States, and his longtime chief of staff. The order was immediately hailed by families of the 9/11 victims as a milestone in their years-long effort to prove that some Saudi officials were either complicit in the attacks...

Syria decided on Tuesday to postpone releasing the findings of its investigation into the Feb. 12 assassination of Hezbollah operations chief Imad Mughniyah just as Iranian media outlet, Fars News Agency, reported through its Persian language service that Syrian authorities had detained a Saudi Arabian intelligence official for allegedly participating in the assassination. According to the Fars report, the Saudi official’s Syrian girlfriend bought the two vehicles used in the bombing that killed Mughniyah. We are also told that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a top Saudi national security official, masterminded the operation. While Damascus is refraining from officially implicating Riyadh...

Khobar Towers The Clinton administration left many stones unturnd. BY LOUIS J. FREEH Sunday, June 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. Ten years ago today, acting under direct orders from senior Iranian government leaders, the Saudi Hezbollah detonated a 25,000-pound TNT bomb that killed 19 U.S. airmen in their dormitory at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The blast wave destroyed Building 131 and grievously wounded hundreds of additional Air Force personnel. It also killed an unknown number of Saudi civilians in a nearby park. The 19 Americans murdered were members of the 4,404th Wing, who were risking their lives to enforce...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Saudi Arabia appointed its first female ambassador early Sunday to serve as its top diplomat in the United States, pulling a son of King Salman back to the kingdom to serve as deputy defense minister amid deteriorating ties with America after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, a daughter of the kingdom's longtime ambassador to Washington Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, faces a stark challenge in improving ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

In the aftermath of the disastrous, for both the US and Saudi Arabia, false flag campaign to replace the Syrian regime with one which would be amenable to allowing a Qatari gas pipeline to pass underneath the Al-Qaeda rebel infested country, there were numerous rumors that the reign of Saudi's infamous former ambassador to the US and current intelligence chief, Prince Bandar "Bush" bin Sultan - the man who we suggested was the puppetmaster behind the entire failed operation - had come to an end. Some two months ago, Shia Post reported that "News sources announced that the chief of...

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once famous in Washington for his cigars, parties and charm, is now Saudi Arabia’s point man, fighting Iran in Syria and denouncing the Obama administration. ...

Upset at President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Syria, members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years. Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a 'major shift' in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday. Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that the United States had failed to...

Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta say Saudi Arabia provided chemical weapons for an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group which they blame for the August 21 chemical attack in the region, a Mint Press News report says. The article co-authored by a veteran AP reporter, said interviews with doctors, residents, anti-government forces and their families in Ghouta suggest the terrorists in question received chemical weapons via Saudi spymaster Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud. The report quoted the father of a militant as saying that his son and 12 others were killed inside a tunnel used...

at a tennis match this evening per Greta

 The Saudis: Which Side Are They On? by Robert Spencer Saudi officials announced Monday that they had arrested 56 members of Al-Qaeda, who were at an “advanced stage” of planning jihad terror attacks within the Kingdom. This would seem to support President Bush’s statement from last October, when in order to free up aid from the Saudis he declared: “I hereby certify that Saudi Arabia is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the proposed assistance will help facilitate that effort.” As jarring as it may be to contemplate the notion that the United States is providing aid...

February 10, 2008 Saudi royal Prince Bandar Bin Sultan's assets frozen Grant Ringshaw PRINCE Bandar Bin Sultan, the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to America, has been hit by a court order in effect freezing some of his US assets, as part of a class-action lawsuit over bribery allegations at British defence giant BAE Systems. A Michigan pension scheme ? the City of Harper Woods Employees’ Retirement System ? has been granted a restraining order, according to documents filed in the US district of Columbia and seen by The Sunday Times. The order, granted last Tuesday, blocks Bandar from transferring out...

<p>1. Russians Suspected in Shooting of Kremlin Critic Near D.C.</p> <p>One year ago, Kremlin critic Paul Joyal was gunned down in the driveway of his suburban Maryland home. The case remains unsolved — but some see the hand of Russia in the shooting.</p>

MUST READ - James Baker Works to Establish Direct Diplomatic USA - Iran Ties Former US Secretary of State Baker Attempts to Bypass Bush White House on Iran Defense & Foreign Affairs Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS. Former US Secretary of State James Baker, who co-chaired the recent US Iraq Study Group — the main recommendations of which were rejected by the George W. Bush Administration — is working indirectly and behind the scenes to bring about direct diplomatic ties between the US and Iran. This is in defiance of Bush White House policy which essentially has said...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- When King Abd al-Aziz -- also known as Ibn Saud -- died in 1953, he left 44 sons and uncounted daughters by 17 wives. He used to break up the monotony of daylong cabinet meetings with intimate interludes selected from a catalogue that contained pictures of over 600 concubines. Founded by Abd al-Aziz in 1932, modern Saudi Arabia is an oligarchy of 7,000 male princes. The royals number an estimated 21,000 (including up to 4 wives allowed by the Koran). King Abdullah, who succeeded the late King Fahd in August 2005, is the fifth...

Saudi Arabia has given Britain 10 days to halt a fraud investigation into the country's arms trade - or lose a £10 billion Eurofighter contract. The contract supports up to 50,000 British jobs and there are now fears that the deal may go to France. The Saudi government is on the verge of cancelling the contract - an extension of one brokered by Margaret Thatcher 20 year ago - because of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into allegations of a slush fund for members of the Saudi royal family, according to authoritative sources. Tony Blair has been told that the...

BYE-BYE, BANDAR By STEPHEN SCHWARTZ WITH the departure, announced this week, of the dean of Washington's diplomatic corps, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, from his post as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, an epoch has ended. Unfortunately, regardless of praise heaped upon him by the cadre of professional American apologists for the desert kingdom, the 22-year tenure of Ambassador Bandar has seen little more than deceit, corruption and horror in U.S.-Saudi relations.

Good Riddance . . . But Not Much Improvement Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, is out. Prince Turki is in. by Stephen Schwartz 07/20/2005 3:45:00 PM AS ANNOUNCED ON Wednesday, July 20, Saudi Arabia's long-serving ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, is leaving town. Allegedly, he resigned. The dean of the foreign diplomatic corps in Washington will be replaced by Prince Turki al Faisal, the former intelligence chief of the kingdom. Seeing the last of the unctuous Bandar will be viscerally pleasing to many Americans and to Saudi liberal dissidents. The...

Senior U.S. and Saudi officials as well as a senior member of the diplomatic community in Riyadh told NBC News that Prince Bandar bin Sultan tendered his resignation as ambassador to the U.S. to Crown Prince Abdullah in recent days. The resignation appears to be the result of continuing health problems for the 56-year-old envoy. “You can feel comfortable reporting that,” said the western diplomat confirming what several Saudi and U.S. officials had told NBC News about the Prince's resignation. Bandar is the dean of the Washington diplomatic community. He has been a powerful figure in the U.S. since being...

Wesley Clark the other day blamed the Bush administration for the intelligence failures leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. And Hillary Clinton said, darkly, that the administration's refusal to hand over documents to a 9/11 commission "unnecessarily raises suspicions that it has something to hide." Meanwhile, Condi Rice in a speech last week pointed to the failure to take terrorism seriously during the 1990s — in other words, she pointed to Clinton administration failures. The war over the war on terror has just begun. In this battle, it's useful to stick to specifics. Let's take,...