EVEN by recent standards, it was a dizzying Saturday in Saudi Arabia. On November 4th the kingdom announced that scores of people had been held in a massive anti-corruption sweep. The marquee name was Prince Waleed bin Talal, the billionaire businessman and investor. But the detainees also include ten other princes; dozens of current and former ministers; the chairman of the Saudi Binladin Group, a construction conglomerate; and the owner of MBC, the largest satellite network in the Middle East. Some are reportedly being held in Riyadh’s opulent Ritz-Carlton, which told paying guests to leave and stopped accepting new bookings. Private jets were grounded in a bid to stop wealthy businessmen from leaving the kingdom.
This is already a fraught moment for Saudi Arabia, even without the palace intrigue. A ruinous two-and-a-half-year war in Yemen, meant to topple Houthi rebels who ousted the government in 2015, has plunged that country into a humanitarian crisis. Though the Houthis have lost territory, they still control Sana’a, the capital, and most of northern Yemen. As the Saudi shake-up began on Saturday night, they fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh. (It was intercepted.) Just as unsuccessful is the five-month-old blockade of Qatar, which was meant to force the gas-rich emirate to drop its support for Islamist groups. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival, Iran,...Continue reading
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