Front Burner - 'Tiger Squad' and Saudi Arabia's brutal campaign to crush dissent

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

According to a newly declassified U.S report, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince approved the operation that led to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Today on Front Burner, how the Saudi regime’s campaign to crush dissent extends far beyond that murder.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation that led to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That's the headline from a recently declassified U.S. intelligence report. It also points the finger at an elite squad, a kill team responsible for protecting the crown prince. U.S. officials call them the

Rapid Intervention Force. They've also been called the Tiger Squad, and they're linked to a brutal campaign to crush dissent inside Saudi Arabia and abroad. In fact, a number of Saudi dissidents now living in Canada say they've been targeted in ways that resemble the squad's tactics. I'm Jamie Poisson, and today I'm talking to New York Times investigative reporter Mark Mazzetti about how Jamal Khashoggi's death has shone a light on a much wider campaign to eradicate dissent against the Saudi regime. Hey, Mark, thanks so much for making the time today. Sure. Thanks for having me on. So this so-called rapid intervention force slash Tiger Squad, according to this new report, what did they have to do with Jamal Khashoggi's murder? they have to do with Jamal Khashoggi's murder? The report that got declassified and released on Friday says that seven of the people involved in the killing of Khashoggi were members of this

rapid intervention force, which is described as a group that really reports and answers to Mohammed bin Salman, is a group that is really designed for his protection. But as my colleague Ben Hubbard and I wrote about in 2019, it is a group that has actually been part of this extensive campaign, both inside Saudi Arabia and overseas, to crack down on dissent, to target critics of the powerful crown prince. And in a way, you can see the Khashoggi killing as really just one particularly egregious operation that was part of a wider campaign that was going on, you know, possibly a year or so before Khashoggi was killed. Right. And the Saudi government has long denied that MBS has had any role in Khashoggi's killing. Have they acknowledged the existence of this team, of this force in any

way at all? Not that I've seen. When we wrote the story in 2019, they denied that there was any kind of widespread campaign. The individuals who he identified as members of the group, they said at the time, well, those people are indeed under investigation on trial for the killing of Khashoggi, but they did not acknowledge that there was some larger effort campaign going on that had anyway served at the direction of Mohammed bin Salman. What do we know about when and how this group started? There's a lot we don't know. I mean, what we know is that Mohammed bin Salman came to power as crown prince in 2017.

And officials that we spoke to for our first story a couple years ago said that it appears, based on intelligence reporting, that the group probably has been doing operations at that time and been doing it for more than a year. So this goes back to 2018. It's not hard to imagine that they were doing work not long after Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince. I mean, as we know, the crown prince, you know prince came onto the scene very rapidly and with an effort to, in some ways very publicly, go after people he thought were threats. In 2017, there was this well-known operation where all of these wealthy Saudis and princes were brought into the rich Carleton and Riyadh. The world's most pampered prisoners have every comfort except freedom. Luxury swimming pool, restaurants, a gym, everything is glittering.

And in some cases were tortured, beat up, and it was billed as this kind of anti-corruption effort that the new crown prince was taking on. But as we learned more, it was in many ways an effort to silence his critics. I'm taken to meet one suspect. He doesn't give me his name. Says he spends his time with his lawyer, focusing on his case. Senior officials conducting this crackdown say it's not a formal investigation yet. They call it a friendly process. And I know that this group is overseen by this guy, Saad al-Qahtani, a top aide to MBS. And what do we know about him? So we know that Qahtani has been, was in many ways, a kind of image maker for Mohammed bin Salman early on as a guy who wanted to create the image of this young prince who was determined to

reform the kingdom, who had, you know, progressive ideas that were not, you know, the same as his uncles and father and grandfather, you know, traditional Saudi royalty. But Saddam al-Qahtani was also someone who was seen as quite ruthless and using all sorts of different measures to shape the crown prince's image, including an online campaign to silence critics on social media, particularly like Jamal Khashoggi. He ran what they called bot farms, where he would create avatars and bots using fake persona to claim that they were real, and they were advocating for Mohammed bin Salman bin. In fact, they were phony. And he would send this bot army to critics and to try to stifle their voices. He was described as the Lord of the Flies because these bot armies were described as sort of legions of flies that were swarming around people.

first off, the crackdown at the Ritz, and he has been implicated in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. And when we wrote the story about this rapid intervention force, we wrote at the time that Saad al-Qahtani was kind of overseeing it for the crown prince. Okay. And can you give me a little more of a sense of how this group has operated and worked in a number of different ways, including, you know, repatriating Saudi dissidents, right? That's right. So there have been a number of cases overseas, Saudis who were either attempted to be taken back to Saudi Arabia in the United States and in Canada, in Europe, around the Middle East. We believe that the Rapid Intervention Force was involved in some of the operations, particularly in the Middle East. We believe that the Rapid Intervention Force was involved in some of the operations, particularly in the Middle East, going outside the kingdom, basically taking people,

sometimes forcibly, but possibly not forcibly, where they are basically threatening harm to the families of people, family members inside Saudi Arabia as a way to get people back to the kingdom. And by getting them back to the kingdom, they're basically in effect silencing their voices. We don't know a whole lot about specific operations that this group did, but we do know that there have been all these allegations of efforts by Mohammed bin Salman to do these kind of repatriation efforts around the world. Right. And speaking of some of these allegations, there are a couple of Canadian cases that have raised concerns here, dissidents who say they have been targeted. So there's the case of Ahmed

Abdullah al-Harbi that some of our listeners might be familiar with. He was granted asylum in Canada in 2019. And then he recently reappeared in Saudi Arabia. So it stoked fears from fellow activists that he may have been forced to go back, like you mentioned, and now forced to provide intelligence to Saudi officials. And people also might remember the case of Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, who's now a Canadian resident. And he also said that in 2018,

Saudi agents traveled to Canada to try and bring him back to the kingdom. He said his family in Saudi Arabia has been jailed because of his outspoken views. And he also found this crazy surveillance program that had infiltrated his phone. So Omar's concern was how many other activists could have been exposed by that hack. You know, I have friends from everywhere. Maybe they were listening to every single call that we had. They were listening. They were reading our chat.

I want to ask you about women's rights activists. The RIF, or the S.Q.U.A.D., also appears to be involved in the detainment of dozens of women's rights activists, including Lujain al-Hathoul, who we've talked about on the show before. She went to the University of British Columbia and was pivotal in the push to get women the right to drive. It was this video, shot in 2014, that first garnered her international attention. shot in 2014 that first garnered her international attention. She can be seen defying the Saudi Arabia ban on women driving as she crosses the border into the kingdom. That ban was lifted in 2018, just weeks after she was jailed.

Lou Jane was recently released, but what is the RAF alleged to have done when it comes to women's rights advocates? As we reported based on interviews with American officials, some of these women were detained and tortured at opulent palaces that had been under the, you know, palaces that belonged to either Prince bin Salman or his father, King Salman. And one of the women tried to commit suicide because she had undergone a campaign of psychological torture by this group. And so again, details, we don't have details about all the operations, but this group was indeed directly tied in American intelligence reports to the detention

torture of this group of women activists. Right. It's so brutal. So many of these allegations. There's also the case of a former top Saudi spy chief, Saad al-Jabri, which is playing out right now. He alleges that the Crown Prince sent a hit squad to Canada again in 2018 to try to assassinate him and his family. And he's currently living in Toronto and filed a lawsuit last summer against Mohammed bin Salman. The lawsuit filed in Washington today says that a second Saudi hit squad travelled by air and attempted to enter this country on tourist visas. But Canada Border Service agents were suspicious and refused them entry. And what do we know about whether this case is connected

to the rapid intervention force? He certainly seems to think that it is, right? So, yes, we've reported on his lawsuit. And he does describe in the suit something that is quite similar to the Khashoggi operation. And he alleges that Saudi operatives were sent to Canada to try to kill him just two weeks after Khashoggi was killed. So the manner of the operation and the timing of the operation would indicate perhaps that this group might have been involved. But again, even in his lawsuit, he doesn't provide a whole lot of actual evidence that this operation was targeting him.

But he was certainly in a position to know about the inner workings of a lot of these clandestine operations that the Saudis carry out. He was, as you said, a spy chief. He was a close aide to Mohammed bin Salman's former rival, Mohammed bin Nayef, who bin Salman pushed aside in order to become next in line to the Saudi throne. So Saddam al-Jabari is a guy who knows all the secrets. And, you know, he would be someone who Mohammed bin Salman would naturally be quite concerned about. Dennis Horak was Canada's last ambassador to Saudi Arabia. So he may know some secrets and some details and, you know, quote unquote, where the bodies are buried literally and perhaps figuratively as well.

I guess I should note here that the Saudi government, they allege that al-Jabri embezzled $4.5 billion from a state counterterrorism fund, and al-Jabri denies these accusations. You know, it's so interesting, Mark, listening to you describe this group and how it works. You know, I also can't help think about an episode we did recently with Elliot Higgins of the investigative collective Bellingcat. And we talked about such a similar centralized program of sorts in Russia, to try and crush dissent around the world in Russia's case members of this SFB hit squad. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot more that we all hope to learn about these operations. And it's perhaps the case that if the Khashoggi operation hadn't been so botched, and this group had not left such a trail of evidence in a country that was very eager to track down the

evidence. And I'm talking about Turkey. The U.N. investigators independent report blames Saudi Arabia for the attack. The special rapporteur can't say for sure who ordered the killing, but she's got a pretty good idea. It was overseen, planned, and endorsed by high-level officials, and it was premeditated. You know, this campaign may not have really come to light, right? That the Khashoggi operation, the Khashoggi murder, got so much attention, unwelcome attention if you're Mohammed bin Salman, but it has brought out just maybe the extent that Mohammed bin Salman has tried to consolidate power and ensure that others of his rivals don't gain power themselves. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo.

50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I do want to talk about the political implications of all of this with you. On Friday, the U.S. Treasury Department slapped this rapid intervention force with economic sanctions. First ruling the Khashoggi killing, but not MBS. They did not slap MBS with any sanctions.

The State Department defended the decision, saying the relationship with the complicated Middle East ally is bigger than one person. What we've done by the actions that we've taken is really not to rupture the relationship, but to recalibrate it, to be more in line with our interests and our values. What is that likely to look like? The Biden administration took a fair amount of heat over the weekend for the decision to not directly sanction Mohammed bin Salman. And White House officials said today that, you know, this is not something that we do, the United States doesn't do. We don't sanction the leaders of, you know, quote, unquote, friendly countries, the countries the United States is allies with. But, you know, the administration has tried to at least portray a stark contrast between how it treats Saudi Arabia in its first month and a half and how the Trump administration treated Saudi Arabia over four years. You could argue that no country kind of did better under the Trump administration than Saudi Arabia in terms of traditional American friends and allies.

Saudi Arabia in terms of, you know, traditional American friends and allies. And the Biden administration has clearly signaled that, you know, there is a new group, a new group in town. And, you know, they have said that they're going to end support for the war in Yemen. They're going to relook at at arms sales. And they, you know, took this step of declassifying this report. But as you said, they did not actually sanction Mohammed bin Salman himself, indicating that, you know, there was a line they didn't want to cross. And I think it's pretty certain that, you know, the United States is not going to sever ties with Saudi Arabia. Nobody in the Biden administration has indicated that they intend to do that. So we're just going to have to see what kind of pressures are put on the Biden administration in a lot of different a lot from a lot of different directions, whether it be in foreign policy.

And if there's this view that the Biden administration really needs Saudi Arabia, if they're going to try to negotiate a new deal with Iran, or if it's seen that, you know, they're not willing to sacrifice, you know, in questions of human rights when trying to get foreign policy deals done. So this is one of the interesting tensions in the first month and a half of the Biden administration. Right. And it does seem like perhaps our prime minister is trying to navigate those tensions as well. Canada has sanctioned 17 of the men they say were tied to Khashoggi's death, though not the Crown Prince, although there are calls for Canada to do this, including from Jamal Khashoggi's friend, Abdullah Loda, who we've spoken to. To sanction him is to send a strong message, not just to MBS, but to everybody, that you are not going to be immune from accountability.

You are not an exception to the rule of law. And therefore, you have to be careful not to use the international arena as a stage or a theater for your own Bush operations. Justin Trudeau, our prime minister, was asked about this on Sunday on Meet the Press. And he essentially said that the relationship is complicated. Is Saudi Arabia an ally to Canada? No, I wouldn't say it. They're a country we do business with. They're a country that we continually advocate for greater transparency, greater human rights, protection of women, of activists.

Yes, it's a similar situation. greater human rights, protection of women, of activists. Yes, it's a similar situation. And these are longstanding partnerships between countries that presidents and prime ministers are loathe to sever because they are told to look at the big picture. And so this is a balancing act, whether it's for Trudeau or for Biden, about how they are going to, you know, go through, you know, fulfill commitments to bring in human rights abuses to the front and to make it central to how the U.S. or Canada conducts foreign policy. But at the same time, you know, look at other things that the United States and

Canada need Saudi Arabia for. Mark Mazzetti, thank you so much for this conversation. We really, really appreciate you taking the time. Okay, thank you. I mentioned Prime Minister Trudeau's response on Meet the Press to questions about Canada's relationship with Saudi Arabia in light of the U.S. intelligence report. Here's a bit of that exchange. Canada has consistently, as you say, been very, very strong on condemning the human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia, condemning the heinous murder of a journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

We know that we need to stand together as a world and ensure that democracy and freedom of the press and the work that journalists do are protected. We're going to continue work with partners around the world. We're, of course, very interested in the report that has come out, but we're going to continue to work alongside our allies because we all need to stand together on issues like this. We also reached out to Global Affairs Canada to ask whether it's still Canada's position that we continue to export light-armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. In a statement, a spokesperson responded saying that export permit applications for controlled goods and technology going to Saudi Arabia

are looked at on a case-by-case basis to make sure they're consistent with the Arms Trade Treaty and other Canadian legislation and policies. They went on to say that Canada is monitoring developments in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is currently involved in the conflict there, and would take action should they find evidence of any Canadian technology being used to contravene international human rights. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll talk to you tomorrow.