10-25 While Qahtani was stripped off his position as royal court adviser, he retained his title of “Chairman of Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones", as his updated Twitter profile revealed….The official rebuke was hardly harsh, according to Bianco. “His powers have been curtailed, but he is not completely out of the picture. He has not been detained or charged,” said Bianco. https://www.france24.com/en/20181025-saudi-steve-bannon-saud-qahtani-khashoggi-twitter
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11-18-18 a Saudi analyst: “He (Qahtani) has a personal friendship with Prince Mohammed, and Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a transparent judiciary. The concept of accountability when it comes to friends [of princes], it doesn’t exist.”…
Mr Qahtani has not been arrested. When asked about his status the Saudi deputy attorney-general said he was banned from travelling abroad and remained under investigation….
Mr Qahtani was also instrumental in Prince Mohammed’s anti-corruption crackdown last year in which hundreds of royals and tycoons were detained in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. He lured targets by arranging meetings under false pretences, people aware said….
Qahtani has changed his Twitter biography several times since his sacking. At first, he dispensed with the royal court title, but kept his role as head of the cyber-security federation. A few days later he replaced it with “personal account” only.
A Saudi journalist added that the hyper-nationalistic atmosphere Mr Qahtani promoted was here to stay. “They unleashed a monster that can’t be controlled now,” the journalist said. “You can’t just put it back in a cage and hope it won’t keep screaming.”
https://www.ft.com/content/e9940fc8-e9a3-11e8-a34c-663b3f553b35
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Among the intelligence assembled by the CIA is an audio recording from a listening device that the Turks placed inside the Saudi Consulate, according to the people familiar with the matter. The Turks gave the CIA a copy of that audio, and the agency’s director, Gina Haspel, has listened to it….Mutreb called Saud al-Qahtani, then one of the top aides to Mohammed, and informed him that the operation had been completed, according to people familiar with the call. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-concludes-saudi-crown-prince-ordered-jamal-khashoggis-assassination/2018/11/16/98c89fe6-e9b2-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.470942362d4e
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11-28-18 (WASHINGTON) — 
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Senators Wednesday that America’s national security interests are at stake as they consider a vote to halt U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
In prepared remarks released ahead of a closed-door Senate briefing Pompeo said diplomatic efforts to end the conflict were underway. “The suffering in Yemen grieves me, but if the United States of America was not involved in Yemen, it would be a hell of a lot worse,” Pompeo said. …
Pompeo said U.S. involvement in the Yemen conflict is central to the Trump administration’s broader goal of containing Iranian influence in the Middle East. His language was blunt in a Wall Street Journal article published Tuesday, in which he said Khashoggi’s murder “has heightened the Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on. But degrading U.S.-Saudi ties would be a grave mistake for the national security of the U.S. and its allies.” http://time.com/5465826/pompeo-saudi-arabia-yemen-senate/
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The Senate voted 63 to 37 to bring to the floor a measure to limit presidential war powers in Yemen. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/us/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-yemen.html
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12-1-18
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent at least 11 messages to Saud al-Qahtani, his closest adviser who oversaw the team that killed Jamal Khashoggi, in the hours before and after the journalist's death in October, according to a highly classified CIA assessment seen by the Wall Street Journal.
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at G20
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