Middle East expert says journalist’s disappearance could damage US-Saudi relations more than 9/11

Middle East expert Simon Henderson said Thursday that the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Saudi journalist, could damage ties with the Saudi Arabian government even more than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Henderson, who’s a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that unlike with the 9/11 attacks, which were orchestrated by Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden and carried out by al Qaeda militants, the disappearance of the Washington Post journalist appears to be directly connected to the government of Saudi Arabia.

“The last crisis with Saudi Arabia – 9/11, which has been very bad, was very bad — I think it’s of that proportion and potentially worse,” Henderson, an opinion contributor to The Hill, told Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”

“9/11 was about 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, but they were Saudi rebels,” he said. “They were against the regime. This, at least according to current reports, would appear to be the Saudi government itself – this is huge.”

The Washington Post reported that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia in order to detain him.

The journalist walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 for paperwork regarding the upcoming marriage to his fiancee. He has not been seen since.

Turkish media outlets reported that a Saudi assassination team killed Khashoggi inside the consulate and then dismembered his body there.

Khashoggi, who exiled himself to the U.S. and has been living in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., was a royal family insider before becoming a critic of the Saudi government.

Henderson said that while he didn’t consider the journalist to be a major critic of the Saudi royal family, his disappearance “must have been personal” because the crown prince, sometimes referred to as MBS, is very sensitive to criticism of any kind.

“His criticism with what’s going on in Saudi Arabia wasn’t, to my mind, very strong,” Henderson said. “It was carefully constructed, carefully argued and his criticism of MBS the crown prince was sort of oblique rather than direct and in your face,” Henderson said.

But he added that the Saudi crown price and the government seem to have thought otherwise and “had to deal with it.”

— Tess Bonn

Updated at 12:34 p.m.