Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forged his father’s signature on a royal order that launched the kingdom’s years-long stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a former Saudi official alleged in a report.
Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations made without evidence by Saad al-Jabri in an interview published by the BBC on Monday, although the kingdom has described him as “a disgraced former government official”. Al-Jabri, a former Saudi intelligence officer who lives in exile in Canada, has been in a dispute with the kingdom for years because two of his children have been jailed as part of an effort to bring them back to Saudi Arabia.
The accusations come as Prince Mohammed is now acting as Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, frequently meeting leaders in place of his father, King Salman, 88. His outspoken behaviour, particularly when he came to power around the start of the Yemen war in 2015, has extended to a sweeping crackdown on any perceived dissent or power base that could challenge his rule.
In his statement to the BBC, al-Jabri said that a “credible, trustworthy” official from the Saudi Interior Ministry had confirmed to him that Prince Mohammed had signed the royal decree declaring war on his father’s behalf.
“We were surprised that there was a royal order to allow ground intervention,” al-Jabri told the BBC. “He forged his father’s signature to that royal order. The king’s mental capacity was deteriorating.”
Al-Jabri’s U.S.-based lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yemen’s war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, launched by the prince with promises of an end soon, has been going on for nearly a decade. The war has killed more than 150,000 people and has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, with tens of thousands more dead. Prince Mohammed was defense minister at the time.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis have launched attacks on shipping, disrupting traffic in the Red Sea — and creating the worst combat situation the US Navy has faced since World War II.
Al-Jabri once worked for former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a trusted confidant of the US in the kingdom’s fight against al-Qaeda militants after the September 11, 2001 attacks. King Salman replaced the crown prince with his son in 2017 and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef is believed to have been placed under house arrest since then.
Al-Jabri had filed a lawsuit against Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a US federal court, alleging that the crown prince tried to have him killed after he fled abroad.
Speaking to the BBC, al-Jabri again alleged that Prince Mohammed was considering assassinating former King Abdullah with a poison ring from Russia – something he claimed in an interview with CBS News in 2021. He also revealed that he fears the Crown Prince still wants to kill him because his children are imprisoned in the kingdom.
“He planned to kill me,” al-Jabri told the BBC. “He will not rest until he sees me dead. I have no doubt about that.”