Revealed: Saudi death squad in Khashoggi murder was trained in US

Four Saudi operatives involved in the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 are revealed to have received paramilitary training on US soil the previous year as part of a contract approved by the State Department.

The training came as the secret Saudi unit responsible for Khashoggi’s torture killing was engaged in an “extensive campaign of kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudi citizens ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, to crush dissent inside the kingdom,” the New York Times reported Saturday.

The instruction, according to the report, was provided by the Arkansas-based security company Tier 1 Group — owned by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management — and included “safe marksmanship” and “countering an attack.”

The training was devised to better protect Saudi leaders.

However, “one person familiar with the training said it also included work in surveillance and close-quarters battle,” the report added. “The fact that the government approved high-level military training for operatives who went on to carry out the grisly killing of a journalist shows how intensely intertwined the United States has become with an autocratic nation even as its agents committed horrific human rights abuses.”

“It also underscores the perils of military partnerships with repressive governments and demonstrates how little oversight exists for those forces after they return home,” said the report, adding that more such cases are expected since American private military contractors increasingly depend on foreign client to shore up their business.

The State Department initially granted a license for the paramilitary training of the Saudi Royal Guard to Tier 1 Group starting in 2014, during the administration of ex-president Barack Obama. The training continued during at least the first year of former president Donald Trump’s term.

A State Department spokesman, however, declined to confirm whether it awarded licenses to Tier 1 Group for the Saudi training.

“This administration insists on responsible use of US origin defense equipment and training by our allies and partners, and considers appropriate responses if violations occur,” said its spokesman Ned Price as quoted in the report. “Saudi Arabia faces significant threats to its territory, and we are committed to working together to help Riyadh strengthen its defenses.”

 spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington also refused to comment on the development.

The US daily pointed to a 2019 article by David Ignatius of The Washington Post — for which Khashoggi worked and which first revealed that members of “the Khashoggi kill team” had received training in the US and that the CIA had “cautioned other government agencies” — that some special-operations training may have been conducted by Tier 1 Group under a State Department license.

It remains unclear, however, which members of the Khashoggi kill team participated in the Tier 1 Group training. Seven members of the team belonged to an elite unit charged with protecting despotic Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to an American “intelligence report about the assassination” that was declassified in February.

The role of operatives from the so-called Rapid Intervention Force (RIF) in the Khashoggi killing helped bolster the American intelligence case that bin Salman approved the operation.

Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, his body dismembered using a bone saw. The assassination brought widespread condemnation on Bin Salman, who has publicly denied any knowledge of the operation.

MG