New purge in the ranks of the Saudi royal family. At the behest of the Crown Prince, Mohamed Bin Salman , one of the most powerful princes, Fahd bin Turki , has been ousted on charges of corruption. Bin Turki had been, for two and a half years, the military leader of the Arab coalition in the Yemen war .
King Salman, afflicted with Alzheimer’s, signed the decree the day before yesterday, at the request of his son, eventually Minister of Defense. This order also dismisses the deputy governor of Al Yauf province, and Bin Turki’s son, Abdulaziz, as well as four defense officials.
The declining health of the king, who has spent part of the summer in hospital, is accelerating nervousness about his succession. His son Mohamed stood as a dolphin just three years ago, in a palace coup against his cousin, Mohamed bin Nayef, then Minister of the Interior, as his father had been for thirty-seven years.
The deteriorating health of the Saudi king accelerates nervousness about succession
In November of that year, the new heir unleashed a first purge, under the banner of the fight against corruption, against hundreds of princes and potentates of the kingdom, whom he lightened with a good pinch of his fortune after locking them in the golden cage of the Ritz hotel in Riyadh.
This year, the purges are targeting princes closer to the military than to the boards of directors. Since March, the family of his cousin Nayef says they do not know where they keep him isolated. That same month, a short-lived Interior Minister, brother of King Salman himself, was also arrested.
Now it is the turn of the subordinates of the ministry from which he launched, before turning thirty, a war in which his latest generation weapons have not served him to impose himself on the poorest Arab country, just to devastate it.
The Emirates, their theoretical allies against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, are waging their own war, with control of Aden and the island of Socotra in their sights. Their pretext is the use of Islamist militiamen by Riyadh, although they do not hesitate to use Colombian paramilitaries.
Meanwhile, US shale oil has downgraded the region’s importance to Washington. The Trump presidency has trumpeted day in and day out, a troop withdrawal. All this stimulates the rapprochement between the Persian autocracies and Israel, visible the day before yesterday at the christening of the Tel Aviv-Abu Dhabi flight
