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A8 WORLD NEWS
Monday 8 october 2018

Missing Saudi journalist once a voice of reform in kingdom

By SARAH EL DEEB Istanbul, something Saudi
Associated Press officials vehemently deny.
BEIRUT (AP) — Jamal The U.S.-educated
Khashoggi, the Saudi jour- Khashoggi was no stranger
nalist who disappeared to controversy.
last week after a visit to A graduate of Indiana
his country’s consulate in State University, Khashoggi
Turkey, was once a Saudi began his career in the
insider. A close aide to 1980s, covering the Soviet
the kingdom’s former spy occupation of Afghanistan
chief, he had been a lead- and the decade-long war
ing voice in the country’s that followed for the Eng-
prominent dailies, includ- lish-language daily Saudi
ing the main English news- Gazette. He traveled ex-
papers. tensively in the Middle East,
Now the 59-year-old jour- covering Algeria’s 1990s
nalist and contributor to The war against Islamic mili-
Washington Post is feared tants, and the Islamists rise
dead, and Turkish authori- in Sudan.
ties believe he was slain in- He interviewed Osama bin
side the Saudi Consulate in Laden in Afghanistan be-

In this Friday, Oct. 5, 2018 file photo, Tawakkol Karman, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2011
holds a picture of missing Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi as she speaks to journalists near the Saudi
Arabia consulate, in Istanbul, Turkey.
Associated Press
fore al-Qaida was formed, back against his criticism him to lead his new TV sta-
then met him in Sudan in of the powerful religious tion, touted as a rival to
1995. Following bin Laden’s police and Ibn Taymiyah, Qatari-funded Al-Jazeera,
rise likely helped cement a medieval cleric viewed a staunch critic of the king-
Khashoggi’s ties with pow- as the spiritual forefather of dom.
erful former Saudi spy chief, Wahhabism, the conserva- But the new Al-Arab sta-
Turki Al-Faisal. tive interpretation of Islam tion, based in Bahrain,
Khashoggi rubbed shoul- that is the founding tenant was shut down hours after
ders with the Saudi royal of the kingdom. it launched, for hosting a
family and supported ef- Khoshaggi then served as Bahraini opposition figure.
forts to nudge the king- media adviser to Al-Faisal, Khoshaggi’s final break
dom’s entrenched ultra- the former spy chief, who with the Saudi authorities
conservative clerics to ac- was at the time the ambas- followed the Arab Spring
cept reforms. He served sador to the United States. protests that swept through
as an editor for nine years Khashoggi returned to Al- the region in 2011, shaking
on the Islamist-leaning al- Watan in 2007, where he the power base of tradi-
Madina newspaper and continued his criticism of tional leaders and giving
was frequently quoted in the clerics as the late King rise to Islamists, only to be
the Western media as an Abdullah implemented followed by unprecedent-
expert on Islamic radicals cautious reforms to try to ed crackdowns on those
and a reformist voice. shake their hold. Three calling for change. Siding
However, he was fired from years later, he was forced with the opposition in Egypt
his post as an editor at Al- to resign again after a series and Syria, Khashoggi be-
Watan, a liberal paper of articles criticizing Salaf- came a vocal critic of his
founded after the 9/11 ter- ism, the ultra-conservative own government’s stance
ror attacks, just two months Sunni Islam movement from there and a defender of
after he took the job in 2003. which Wahhabism stems. moderate Islamists, which
The country’s ultra-conser- In 2010, Saudi billionaire Al- Riyadh considered an exis-
vative clerics had pushed waleed bin Talal tapped tential threat.q