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User:Tarafa15/MBS Defense Minister & Deputy Crown Prince

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Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince

[edit]
Prince Mohammed with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Adel al-Jubeir, 13 June 2016
President Donald Trump speaks with Prince bin Salman, Washington, D.C., 14 March 2017
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis with Prince Mohammad, 22 March 2018

On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah died, Salman took the throne and Prince Mohammed bin Salman was appointed Minister of Defense.[1] He was also named as the Secretary General of the Royal Court on the same date.[2] In addition he retained his post as the Minister of the State.[3][4]

In Yemen, the political unrest (which began escalating in 2011) rapidly became a major issue for the newly appointed Minister of Defense, with rebel Houthis taking control of northern Yemen in late 2014, followed by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his cabinet’s resignation. Mohammed bin Salman’s first move as minister was to mobilize a pan-GCC coalition to intervene following a series of suicide bombings in Sanaa via air strikes against Houthis, and impose a naval blockade.[5] In March 2015, Saudi Arabia began leading a coalition of countries allied against the Houthi rebels.[6] While there was agreement on the necessity of a response to the Houthis' seizure of Sana'a, which had forced the Yemeni government into exile, Prince Mohammad launched the intervention without full coordination across security services. Saudi National Guard Minister Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, who was out of the country, was left out of the loop of operations.[7] While Prince Mohammed bin Salman sold the war as a quick win on Houthi rebels in Yemen and a way to put President Hadi back in power, however, it became a long war of attrition.[8][9]

In April 2015, Muhammad bin Nayef, who is King Salman's nephew,[10][11] and Prince Mohammed bin Salman became Crown Prince and Deputy Crown Prince, respectively, under King Salman’s royal decrees.[12]

In late 2015, Prince Mohammed attended a meeting between King Salman and U.S. President Barack Obama, where the prince broke protocol to deliver a monologue criticizing U.S. foreign policy.[7] When Prince bin Salman announced an anti-terrorist military alliance of Islamic countries in December 2015, some of the countries involved said they had not been consulted.[7]

Regarding his role in the military intervention, Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave his first on-the-record interview on 4 January 2016 to The Economist, which had called him the "architect of the war in Yemen". Denying the title, he explained the mechanism of the decision-making institutions actually holding stakes in the intervention, including the council of security and political affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the Saudi side. He added that the Houthis usurped power in the Yemeni capital Sana’a before he served as Minister of Defense.[8][13][14]

In response to the threat from ISIL, In December 2015 Prince Mohammad established the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), a Saudi-led Islamic alliance against terrorism.[15] The IMCTC's first meeting took place in Riyadh in November 2017 and involved defense ministers and officials from 41 countries.[16]

  1. ^ "Saudi King Abdullah passes away". Al Arabiya. 23 January 2015. Archived from the original on 23 January 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  2. ^ "Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman named defense minister". Al Arabiya. 23 January 2015. Archived from the original on 23 January 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  3. ^ Profile: Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine Al Arabiya. 27 January 2015. Retrieved 28 February 2015
  4. ^ Anthony H. Cordesman (24 January 2015). "Saudi Succession: The King Is Dead, Long Live the King". Newsweek. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  5. ^ Yemen profile - Timeline Archived 30 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, BBC, 6 July 2017
  6. ^ Saudi and Arab allies bomb Houthi positions in Yemen Archived 26 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Al Jazeera, 26 March 2015
  7. ^ a b c Mark Mazzetti; Ben Hubbard (16 October 2016). "Rise of Saudi Prince Shatters Decades of Royal Tradition". The New York Times. p. A1. Archived from the original on 16 October 2016. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
  8. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference risktaking was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "The most dangerous man in the world?". Independent. 8 January 2016. Archived from the original on 15 June 2017.
  10. ^ "Saudi Arabia's king appoints new interior minister". BBC. 5 November 2012. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  11. ^ "Council of Ministers: Membership". Royal Embassy, Washington DC. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  12. ^ "King Salman: The man in charge of the 'most dangerous man in the world'". Independent. 22 January 2016. Archived from the original on 15 June 2017.
  13. ^ "Transcript: Interview with Muhammad bin Salman". The Economist. 6 January 2016. Archived from the original on 10 January 2016. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference arrogantsaudi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Browning, Noah; Irish, John (15 December 2015). "Saudi Arabia announces 34-state Islamic military alliance against terrorism". Reuters. Dubai/Paris. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  16. ^ McKernan, Bethan (27 November 2017). "More than 40 Islamic countries just met and vowed to wipe terrorism off the map". The Independent. Beirut. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
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