WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Saudi Arabia’s pro-democracy party has launched a campaign against the Riyadh regime’s crown prince in the U.S., slamming him for aiding and abetting the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The National Assembly Party (NAAS), an opposition party of Saudi Arabia with members mostly living in exile, has reserved advertisements on trucks in the Washington DC, showing Mohammad Bin Salman with blood-stained hands.
“We deserve democracy, not Mr. Bone-saw the crown prince,” reads one of the advertisements, referring to the crown prince as ‘Mr. Bone-saw’.
Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist who lived in the U.S. at the time of his death, was murdered at Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018. His body was later dismembered.
Saudi Arabia initially issued conflicting versions about his disappearance, but eventually claimed that he had been killed in a “rogue” operation, without owning responsibility.
U.S. intelligence agencies earlier this year admitted that the notorious Saudi crown prince had ordered the killing of Khashoggi, a strong critic of the Saudi rulers, and then tried to eliminate the evidence.
Protesters in Washington on Monday condemned the silence of the U.S. government over it and demanded the democratic transition in the Arab country.
The trucks moved around the U.S. capital, driving in front of the White House, the Saudi Embassy and the U.S. Congress, while attracting attention from by-passers.
The organizers also posted pictures on the Twitter, saying they were marching in defense of the Saudi people.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States and regional allies, also launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.
The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.
Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s incessant bombardment of the impoverished country, the Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.
In a latest development, Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters, intercepted and shot down a spying Saudi unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as it was flying in the skies over Yemen’s southern oil-producing province of Shabwah late on Monday.
Spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said in a tweet that Yemeni air defense forces targeted the Chinese-made CH-4 combat drone with a surface-to-air missile as it was carrying out hostile acts over the Usaylan district.
The CH-4 drone has a range of 3,500 to 5,000 kilometers and a 30- to 40-hour endurance. It is capable of carrying six missiles and a payload of up to 250 to 345 kilograms.
The UAV can fire air-to-ground missiles from an altitude of 5,000 meters, enabling it to stay out of the effective range of most anti-aircraft guns.
In similar events, several CH-4 drones have been shot down by the Yemeni forces in recent months.