Prince Bandar back in the Driver’s Seat in Riyadh
Wayne Madsen, Strategic Culture.org, Jun 12 2014
Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abd’ul-Aziz bin Saud is the godfather behind the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now called the «Islamic State» or «Islamic Caliphate». Without Saudi support for the most radical of the Islamist opposition forces battling Assad, it is doubtful that ISIL would have ever incubated beyond a fringe group in Syria. Although Bandar has been counted out of Saudi politics before, it now appears that hopes for the sacking of the former long-serving Saudi ambassador to Usaia and personal friend of the Bush political family, were mere «wishful thinking» on the part of those who have crossed swords in the past with Bandar. Bandar has returned to an influential position advising King Abd’ullah after being sacked as Saudi intelligence chief last April. Bandar’s new title is «adviser to the King and his special envoy». Bandar never actually left the Saudi inner circle. After being dismissed as intelligence chief in April, he retained his position as secretary general of the Saudi National Security Council, a position similar to that held by Susan Rice as the White House National Security Adviser and director of the National Security Council.
Bandar’s restoration to favor within the House of Saud came as King Abdullah appointed the recently-fired deputy defense minister, Prince Khaled bin Bandar bin Abd’ul-Aziz, as the new chief of Saudi intelligence. Prince Khaled now serves in the same Syrian rebel liaison position that Prince Bandar held when the Saudis arranged for millions of dollars in cash and weapons to be transferred to radical Salafis and takfiris fighting Assad in Syria. Although it does appear that Bandar was involved in some sort of internal schism in the House of Saud, it took a mere two days for Khaled from losing his job as deputy defense minister, a job he held for only 45 days, to being named as Saudi intelligence chief. Although they share the same name, Saudi intelligence chief Khaled bin Bandar should not be confused with Saudi businessman Khaled bin Bandar bin Abd’ul-Aziz Al Saud, the son of Prince Bandar. The important position of deputy defense minister remains unfilled. The vacancy has forced Defense Minister Salman bin Abd’ul-Aziz, the Crown Prince, to handle the daily operations of the Defense Ministry. The Saudi governmental shuffle came about to ensure that key Saudi defense and intelligence officials were on the same page in reasserting control over ISIL as it continues to advance toward Baghdad and approaches the Iraqi-Saudi border where some border skirmishes between ISIL guerrillas and Saudi border troops have already been reported.
Unquestionably, the House of Saud has been a major bank roller of ISIL since the beginning of their roles in Syria’s civil war. Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been mainly funded by Qatar, has pledged its support for ISIL as its forces spread across northern and western Iraq and extend their reach into north-eastern Syria. The aim of Saudi Arabia has always been to destabilize Iraq and Syria, hoping that the Maliki and Assad governments, respectively, will be overthrown and replaced with radical Sunni regimes beholden to the Saudis. Bandar also wants to limit the influence of Qatar, which he believes backs the Muslim Brotherhood, a bitter enemy of the House of Saud. Bandar’s return to power signaled a freeze in a developing détente between Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Bandar was originally forced out as Saudi intelligence chief after Obama met with King Abdullah in Riyadh on Mar 28. Bandar’s duties as the chief Saudi interlocutor with Syria’s rebels was transferred to Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. Those duties have now been assumed by Prince Khaled. Prince Mohammed helped steer Saudi support to the FSA, which became a second-tier, weaker player in the Syrian civil war. FSA officials, many of whom are exiled former government officials in the Assad government, are more comfortable in Istanbul hotels and restaurants than on the front lines in Syria. However, after the success of ISIL in eastern Syria and Iraq, the Saudis decided to bring back ISIL’s main interlocutor, Prince Bandar, to bring the group’s leadership under firmer Saudi control.
Bandar has maintained strong ties to Jihadi terrorism. Bandar, on a pre-Sochi Olympics trip to Moscow, offered Russia a lucrative weapons deal if Russia ceased its support for Assad. Bandar also told Putin that if Russia rejected Saudi Arabia’s offer, Saudi-backed Islamist terrorists in the Caucasus region would be free to launch terrorist attacks on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Putin reportedly ordered Bandar out of his office in the Kremlin. There are also reports that Saudi-financed Islamist terrorists from Chechnya and Dagestan have been active in Ukraine fighting against Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine. In some cases, Islamist terrorists have joined Israeli paramilitary units in Ukraine in support of the Kiev government’s military actions against eastern Ukraine. In Syria, there have been reports of Mossad coordination with ISIL units in attacks against Syrian government forces, including in the region north of the Golan Heights. DCI Brennan, a Saudophile and former CIA station chief in Riyadh, reportedly played a hand in the restoration of Bandar to a key position in the Saudi government. Some 1000 Usaian troops and advisers have been dispatched to Iraq not to prevent the Maliki government from falling but to assist in the transition to a post-Maliki government that will have strong pro-Saudi and Sunni representation. The Usaian military personnel are also in Iraq to protect Usaian assets in the country, including the massive Usaian embassy complex in Baghdad, as well as Usaian oil industry interests.
There were varying unsubstantiated reports at the time of Bandar’s dismissal in April that he had been assassinated or wounded while visiting rebel-held positions in Syria. Other reports stated that Bandar, affectionately known by the Bush family as «Bandar Bush» because of his close ties to the Bush dynasty, was poisoned in an internal Saudi feud aimed at eliminating the influence of Bandar, the chief of the influential Sudairi clan within the House of Saud. The clan also includes Prince Turki, also a former Saudi intelligence chief, and Crown Prince Salman, the defense minister and heir apparent to the throne after King Abdullah dies. An ISIL on the move also gives Israel a powerful argument for why it must remain in charge of the West Bank and establish a tighter military control over Gaza. Bandar’s goal is to eliminate the current governments of Syria and Iraq, thus depriving Iran of its only two allies in the region. With a radical Sunni caliphate in charge in Baghdad, ISIL will be poised to cross the Iranian border and start a rebellion among Iran’s Arab minority in Khuzestan province, the center of Iran’s oil industry. With ISIL gaining control of Iraq’s southern oil fields as well as part of the fields bordering Iraqi Kurdistan, the takeover by a Saudi proxy of Iran’s oil province would give Saudi Arabia effective control over much of the Middle East’s oil reserves. In February, Walnuts McCain said at the Munich Security Conference, «Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar». McCain echoed similar comments he made earlier on CNN. In 2012, McCain covertly crossed into Syria from Turkey and was photographed with radical Islamists, some of whom are now fighting with ISIL in Iraq. McCain has also been steadfast in his support of Ukrainian fascists and neo-Nazis. In McCain, «Bandar Bush» has truly met a terrorism supporter comrade-in-arms.
Niqnaq 
10 Comments
Good article, particularly when Madsen riffs in paragraph five on the Salafi-Mossad-Ukraine connection. Also, I didn’t know that DCI Brennan was a former station chief in Riyadh. Is there any doubt that the House of Saud and Likud are running the show in Langley and D.C.?
Nonetheless, the plan sketched out by Madsen in the final paragraph, if true, is just delusional. To think that Salafis could rule Baghdad, using it as a launch pad for an invasion of Iran, is fanciful. My read is that Shiite militias are far better fighters than the Salafis, and the Israelis for that matter. Who has beaten Hezbollah on the ground?
Madsen has a nice shout-out to McCain. Someone said now that McCain has recently visited AfPak expect a coup.
I don’t regard Madsen as 100% reliable. Once or twice, I think, he has gone off on some completely spurious source or other. He is the kind of guy who (a) relies upon private sources, and (b) puts his stuff first into a private newsletter so his readers, having paid to read it, have a sort of vested psychological interest in believing that it’s true. They don’t want to imagine that they are wasting their money.
I don’t like anonymous sources, unless what they are saying fits in with what I regard as obvious anyway. And it was always obvious to me that Bandar hadn’t gone anywhere, except off the radar. I couldn’t have proved it in a million years, but it was intuitively obvious. This is the elusive benefit of doing the same damn thing for over ten years, namely keeping this blog and its late and unfortunately deleted predecessor, naqniq. I’m like an old detective, I just ‘smell’ things.
i have always maintained that bandar never left the driving seat for AQ/ISIS etc, he just went off the radar
I agree and I suspect the exact same situation may apply with regard to David Petraeus
If you think what is happening in the ME is bad wait for Europe in 30-40 years. The Zio-lluminatis have been importing Wahabism by the millions and they are financing and opening mosques all over.
New World (Dis)Order…one of it’s major tenets is a managed Race War and the breakdown of the World into small states.
I don’t think the overall numbers of Muslim immigrants into European countries is large enough to produce the sort of cultural upheavals that the alarmists talk about. The alarmism itself is the point of the plan. And in fact, the plan requires the unification of Europe into one gigantic police state, which I call Euia. The astonishing thing about Euia is that the laws it makes are completely inaccessible to any sort of ‘democratic’ control whatever. I mean, that is bizarre, to say the least.
Go to Marseille or other muslim-majority areas of Europe and then tell me that were not heading for a Yugoslavia x 1000. You dont really think that “they” love mass immigration, multi-culturalism and islamization because they are kind caring people do you?
Bandar back off the radar: “what has happened so far in Riyadh is just a palace coup. Salman got rid of everyone associated with late King Abdullah. Notorious Bandar Bush – still fresh from his spectacular Syria fiasco – was fired from his post of Secretary-General for the National Security Council and special envoy of the King.”
http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150206/1017869785.html#ixzz3R6OEfQlk
Here’s someone else thinks Bandar’s got the boot. This is unusually informative on Saudi royal politics, to I who know nothing at any rate.
The Beginning of the End for Sisi: a Fantasist Rumbled The Winds of Change in Egypt by OMAR KASSEM
Sisi & Greeks turning to Moscow, machinations of israeli proxies at Davos, real (?) change in Saudi, and no RB to explain it all… we are at sixes and sevens
Oh, come on – my guesses are no better than anyone else’s. Worse, you may say, since I am given to extreme simplification. I say Bandar is probably running ISIS, since someone has to, and he has the talents for it.