19 October 2026
Is Crown Prince MBS running scared?
By RN Bhaskar and Sakeena Bari Sayyed
Image: Chatgpt
MBS scared? That would appear to be the case if you listen to the conversation between Glenn Diesen, professor of Russian international affairs, and Alastair Crooke, noted expert on the geopolitics of the Middle East. Just listen to the first few minutes of their podcast at https://youtu.be/3g8gpkZrkg0?si=yIWR13uka18frwXy (timeline 01:20 to 01:50).
From their conversation, you learn of two things. First, that the situation in Saudi Arabia is extremely fragile. Second, MBS is scared for his life.
Both are understandable – as these columns tried to show earlier (“Will Saudi Arabia collapse?” — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/will-saudi-arabia-collapse) Saudi Arabia is a land hemmed in by history, violence, betrayals and hubris.
Hubris and vengeance
It is hubris which made Saudi Arabia think it could ‘teach’ Yemen a lesson. That is why its army chose to attack Sana’a airport just to prevent an Iranian plane from landing there. The fact that the move was targetted against an Iranian plane would suggest that this country’s rulers still take orders from Israel and/or the US. Evidently, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) had ignored the peace deal struck between Saudi Arabia and Iran – modified by China in 2023 ((https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/china-brokered-saudi-iran-deal-driving-wave-of-reconciliation-says-wang).
Even the kowtowing to the US is understandable because Saudi Arabia owes its existence and prosperity to the US. It was the US which helped it discover oil in the 1930s. Without oil, Saudi Arabia would be nothing more than a desert.
It was the US which decided who the next monarch should be. It was this country again which allowed — with a wink and a nod — the moves of the current crown prince MBS (Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) to emerge as the crown prince displacing other contenders. The ruse he adopted was slapping corruption charges on his favourite enemies.
As Ibrahim Warde, adjunct professor of international finance, Fletcher School of Tufts University, USA, remarks, “Anti-corruption initiatives are usually politically motivated. They are often tools for singling out those who were enriched. They provide selective lists of those who were enriched. This was a clear case of the intersection of money and politics in the Islamic world,” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/19/saudi-accounts-emerge-of-ritz-carlton-night-of-the-beating).
The “Night of the beatings” would not have happened in November 2017, had MBS not been sure that the US would not oppose such moves. As The Guardian explains quite vividly, (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/19/saudi-accounts-emerge-of-ritz-carlton-night-of-the-beating), “nearly 400 of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful people, among them princes, tycoons and ministers, were rounded up and detained in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, in what became the biggest and most contentious purge in the modern kingdom’s history.”
A partial list of arrests is available. Linked to the arrests is the suspicious death of another prince (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansour_bin_Muqrin_Al_Saud — Mansour bin Muqrin Al Saud (1974 – 5 November 2017). He could have been a contender for the crown in KSA.
He was a Saudi businessman, member of the House of Saud, and advisor at the Court of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. In April 2015, he was appointed advisor to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques with the rank of minister. He was the son of Prince Muqrin, former Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He was one of the grandsons of Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdulaziz. He was killed in mysterious circumstances when his helicopter crashed near the country’s border with Yemen on 5 November 2017, hours after a major purge of the kingdom’s political and business leadership.
He was one of the Saudi princes who almost got away from the tentacles of MBS. That is why his death is highly suspicious. The US said nothing, did nothing.
The butchering of Khashoggi
The US did make a few sounds against MBS when – earlier — in October 2018, MBS’ hit squad chose to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399) in the most brutal way. As The Guardian points out, “The same guards involved in the Ritz were involved in the killing (of Khashoggi).”
On the ‘Night of the beatings’ The Guardian reports “Often they had no idea what they were looking for. It became straight up blackmail in some cases, because some of the detainees were refusing to sign anything. There was no due process. There is no such thing in the Saudi justice system as a plea bargain, but that was what they were trying to enforce.”
The amounts seized were large — estimated at $107 bn (https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2019/01/30/Saudi-king-presented-with-final-corruption-crackdown-report-107-bln-recovered). But the real prize was the extortion of a signed document – where each trapped royal family member was coerced into stating that he consented to MBS Becoming the crown prince. King Salman, the father was ailing, was the official version.
Prince Muqrin would have challenged that claim – the 2006 agreement among the 22 odd tribes of Saudi Arabia had resolved that the next king would be elected by all the princes. MBS wanted to short-circuit that process.
The undoing
The attack on Yemen could have been MBS’ undoing. He was possibly confident that the US would bail him out. Two appeals went unheard. A third appeal on 17 September 2026 got MBS a sort of positive response from the US. It said that help would be on its way in a couple of days. It did not arrive. The Houthis kept on pounding Saudi infrastructure, especially the oil fields. MBS realised his folly – he had not heeded Henry Kissinger’s famous saying that to be an enemy of the US is dangerous. But to be a friend is fatal.
Now the Houthis have begun attracting disgruntled princes, who are still smarting under the humiliation in Ritz Carlton. There they were also stripped of their wealth, and forced to sign a declaration of becoming subservient to MBS. A swing away from MBS is likely.
If Saudi falls, the whole of the Middle East, carved out by the UK when it was the supreme master of the world, will begin unravelling.
The Las Vegas Massacre
There is another factor that could be making MBS jittery. His past is catching up with him. History has become a nightmare – as James Joyce once wrote.
For this, one has to look at sources beyond mainstream media.
One such source is Truthscore (https://truthscore.com/claim/mohammed-bin-salman-was-in-the-resort-at-the-same-time-as-the-las-vegas–9dca7ac6). It points out how “media “failed” to even mention that at the time of the Las Vegas massacre, the highly controversial Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, MBS, was in the resort at the same time that the shootings took place. A video shows him being ushered out to escape what may have been an assassination attempt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd-qz6ei-UM).
Another source — https://steemit.com/news/@francesleader/the-saudi-las-vegas-connection – tells an even more interesting story.
It talks of how King Faisal’s son, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal could not become the Crown Prince because the king took ill and named his brother Salman as king in his place. Salman named his son MBS as his heir to the throne, instead of his brother’s son Prince Al Waleed.
In Las Vegas, Prince Al Waleed owned the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay resort hotel, including the 32nd floor. That was one of the points of the shooting at the strip. There were other places and other assassins as well.
The Mandalay Bay had a helipad on the roof, which could have been the escape route after the carnage. Stephen Craig Paddock – the man accused of being the sole killer — was a pilot.
He was also a gunrunner between the Philippines and the US. He was also running guns for Prince Al Waleed. His money came from gunrunning, not gambling.
It was later known that King Salman (other sources say MBS) was in Las Vegas.
Another story
But the most comprehensive story can be found at https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-las-vegas-shooting-and-the-mass-arrests-in-saudi-arabia-what-connection-could-there-be/ . The plan was to kill the Crown prince MBS, and then deal with King Salman.
MBS was at Las Vegas. It couldn’t be King Salman because he was in Russia at that time. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/05/saudi-russia-visit-putin-oil-middle-east). The plan was to take out the crown prince. Then kill King Salman. With the King and the Crown Prince dead, the former deputy crown prince, Muqrin, would get the crown.
But US intelligence got wind of this, and other assassins were eliminated. Only Paddock was left to take the blame for the killings.
MBS escaped. But retribution followed.
What is the truth?
Frankly, nobody knows for sure. The FBI has stopped its investigations. Mainstream media has stayed away.
But the lines that crisscross and connect events seem to suggest that the US and MBS were working together. They were willing to eliminate any would-be contenders to the throne.
If true, it would explain why MBS is running scared. He has made too many enemies. His principal protector, the US, is weak. Asking Israel for help would be a toxic decision. That would multiply his foes.
Could that explain the analysis by Crooke that MBS is running scared?
So, will Saudi Arabia disintegrate? Without KSA, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait will be the next to fall.
That would make the panic within Saudi Arabia infectious. The whole of the Middle East could be up in flames. The flames could swallow Israel as well.
Ironically, the conflagration was the direct result of a big mistake that Israel and USA made – of attacking Iran. That stirred the beehive. Those who stirred the hive are running for cover.
Keep your fingers crossed.
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