It has been two days since the highest profile arrests in Saudi Arabia’s history, but there has been no official explanation yet. Bloomberg News has learned that members of the Allegiance Council, a group that votes on matters of succession, have been told that Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz (the last surviving full brother of King Salman bin Abdulaziz) and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (a former heir apparent to the Saudi throne with strong ties to the U.S. security establishment) had been plotting a coup.
That would be the most powerful direct challenge ever to a Saudi ruler — of a magnitude greater than the last, in 1969, when a plan by some air force officers to overthrow the monarchy never got off the ground. So you’d expect either King Salman or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to address their countrymen, and the international community, with some words of reassurance. This hasn’t happened.
As of writing, some of the other powerful figures arrested have been released. But the two most prominent princes remain in custody.
The rumor mills of Riyadh have ground through every possible reason for the high drama of the weekend. Had MBS, as the current crown prince is known, simply grown fed up of the others because they’d been carping about him at family get togethers? Was he signaling to the rest of the House of Saud that he would brook no dissent? Could he simply be getting rid of alternate power centers in preparation for his own elevation to the throne? Or were the others indeed actively plotting to block his accession?
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