Well-informed sources told us that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), launched a massive arrest campaign targeting senior military leaders.
The sources further added that MBS ordered the Military Intelligence Service to tighten control over prominent military officials over lack of loyalty.
This came after a group of military leaders submitted a collective retirement application. MBS refused the request and launched a fierce attack against the group.
I am the one who decides, not you! MBS told the military personals in a private meeting nearly a few weeks ago at the Ministry of Defense headquarters.
A few weeks ago, the prominent colonel in Saudi Arabia’s General Directorate of Public Security Rabih bin Shleweh Alenezi announced his defection in a video he posted to his Twitter account, in which he cited violations of human rights in the Kingdom.
Alenezi posted to his Twitter account photos of his passport and military ID to prove his military position.
In a series of tweet, Alenezi launched a fierce attack against the Saudi regime and its reckless policies against the citizens.
He also pointed out to the high unemployment rates in the Saudi kingdom and the difficult economic situation that pushed many youths to commit suicide.
He charged that “the biggest threat to the Saudi security and society is Muhammad bin Salman.”
Alenezi called on the Saudi government to stop suppressing and intimidating citizens, and to cancel the Presidency of the Saudi State Security, which was created in 2017 by combining the counterterrorism and domestic intelligence services under one roof.
Recently, MBS spent $10 million to fund media and propaganda campaigns to boost his image as a pragmatic diplomatic figure following the recent agreement with Iran.
This reflects the momentous scale of Saudi Arabia’s investments in what they term “whitewashing,” the practice of investing in lobbing campaign in a bid to obscure MBS’s poor human rights record anf promote his ‘reform’ vision 2030.
However, US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that Saudi success in transforming its society and its economy is far from guaranteed. Much can go wrong, and certainly much will go wrong.
According to the center, there remains a huge concentration of power at the center, and that will both help and hurt Saudi reform efforts.
