From the moment Prince Mohammed bin Salman was installed as crown prince in Saudi Arabia in June of 2017, the prince realized that the road was paved for him to rule the kingdom, especially after he was able to remove one of his fiercest competitors to the throne, namely, the former crown prince, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef.

This augmented reality, with absolute powers at various levels and political, security, military, economic, and even social files, made bin Salman act as if he had become the "actual king," but his mistakes might prevent the young prince's dream from being realized.

Perhaps Bin Salman's first "big and well-known" missteps began in November of 2017, when his former adviser Saud Al-Qahtani oversaw the detention of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Riyadh.

A press report revealed at the time that Hariri was taken shortly after his arrival at the airport to one of the rooms, where a security team beat him, before Al-Qahtani himself insulted and insulted him, and forced him to announce his resignation from his position as Prime Minister of Lebanon in a statement, broadcast by one of the Saudi channels .

The report, published by Reuters, quoted a source as saying that Al-Qahtani told Hariri, "You have no choice but to resign and read this statement." The source also added that "Al-Qahtani supervised the interrogation of Hariri and his mistreatment."

Conflict with Iran

The American magazine "The New Yorker" reported that bin Salman's relationship with Hariri, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, the son of the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, one of the kingdom's most prominent allies, deteriorated due to the proxy war with Iran.

The magazine pointed out that Riyadh relied a lot on Hariri to confront Hezbollah, given that he is Sunni and has experience and has fears of Hezbollah, but despite bin Salman's pressure on him, he was not able to confront the party.

The New Yorker pointed out that what sparked Bin Salman's anger was the arrival of an Iranian official to Beirut and his statement that Tehran intends to continue its role in the region, before Hariri took a picture with him while smiling, which greatly angered the Saudi crown prince.

French intervention

About two weeks after Hariri was detained, he was released following the direct intervention of French President Emmanuel Macron. Later, Macron announced that had his country not intervened in the Hariri detention crisis in the kingdom, there might have been a war in Lebanon.

In an interview with the French "BFMTV" channel, the French President added that his trip to Riyadh to persuade the Saudi crown prince to solve the Hariri crisis made Lebanon emerge from a serious crisis. Upon his return to Beirut, Hariri retracted his resignation without disclosing any details of the circumstances of his resignation or his detention.

Jamal Khashoggi

Mohammed bin Salman's misfortunes did not stop at Hariri's detention, but went further, as he was accused of direct responsibility for the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country's consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

The crime sparked a wide global uproar, tarnished bin Salman's reputation, and jeopardized all plans aimed at diversifying the economy of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, and at the openness of Saudi society.

After a set of initially contradictory denial statements, the Saudi official account held responsibility for Khashoggi's killing to a group of security workers and officials, who it claimed acted on their own, that is, without referring to the leadership.

Saudi Attorney General Saud Al-Mujib said that Ahmed Asiri, deputy head of the intelligence service at the time, ordered Khashoggi's return to Saudi Arabia, but the head of the team assigned to bring him ordered his killing after negotiations to return him failed. The admirer also reported that Saud Al-Qahtani briefed the team assigned to bring Khashoggi about their activities prior to the operation.

Saad Al-Jabri

Despite all the global outrage provoked by the Khashoggi murder, bin Salman's troubles did not end there, as press reports revealed that close to the Saudi crown prince have tried more than once over the past few years to assassinate the former intelligence official Saad al-Jabri in the United States and Canada.

The family of al-Jabri, who is close to the isolated and currently detained Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, says that in recent months, Mohammed bin Salman has increased pressure on his relatives, including the arrest of his two adult sons in an attempt to force him to return to the kingdom.

Sources familiar with this file stated that the crown prince's attention is focused on documents available to Jabri that contain information described as very sensitive. The al-Jabri family reported that bin Salman believes that he can use the documents in al-Jabri’s possession against his current and potential rivals on the throne, including bin Nayef, and Mohammed bin Salman fears at the same time that these documents include additional information that he and his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, may touch.

Al-Jabri has resided in Canada since 2017, and he held the position of Minister of State, and he was a senior officer in the Saudi Interior, an expert in artificial intelligence, and he played a major role in the kingdom's battle against Al Qaeda and security coordination with the United States in this war.

However, the man did not feel safe in America under the administration of President Donald Trump, for fear of concluding a deal to hand him over to the Saudi crown prince, which prompted him to leave it in 2017, with his direction towards Canada.

lawsuit

But Saad al-Jabri did not follow in the footsteps of Saad Hariri in silence about what was exposed to him by the Saudi Crown Prince, but moved from defense to attack, where he initiated a lawsuit in Washington against bin Salman accusing him of sending a team to assassinate him in America and Canada, seeking Behind important recordings he owns. The lawsuit accuses the Saudi crown prince of forming a team to arrange the killing of Al-Jabri from 3 people, namely Badr Al-Asaker, Saud Al-Qahtani and Ahmed Al-Asiri, all of whom are senior aides to bin Salman.

The lawsuit also confirms that bin Salman sent a team to assassinate Al-Jabri during his stay in Boston in 2017, and that he tried for months to deploy secret agents in the United States in an attempt to track down the former Saudi officer. After all these attempts failed, the Saudi crown prince did not hesitate to send another team to assassinate Al-Jabri in Canada, only two weeks after the heinous Khashoggi assassination.

The fallout of the case

A few days after the lawsuit was filed, on Monday, Washington Federal Court issued summonses against Mohammed bin Salman and 13 other people to answer Al-Jabri's accusations against them of trying to assassinate him.

The court summonses include Yusef Al-Rajhi and Laila Abu Al-Jadayel, residing in the United States. The court requested a response to the allegations within a maximum period of 21 days, otherwise it will find itself obliged to issue a judgment in absentia in favor of Al-Jabri.

In his experience with the two Saadians, Hariri and Jabri, Muhammad bin Salman may have believed that he was above legal accountability, especially since the detention of the former Lebanese Prime Minister in Saudi Arabia passed unnoticed, as Hariri remained silent and preferred not to raise the issue for considerations related to the historical ties that bind his family in the Kingdom As well as political and professional intersections related to the presence of his companies and businesses in Saudi Arabia.

However, this scenario did not apply to the former Saudi intelligence official, who seems to know exactly how to take advantage of the geography and law factors that are in his favor, especially as he owns winning papers and documents, which might enable him to turn the tables on the young prince and possibly eliminate his ambitions to take over the kingdom's throne. .