Category Archives: King Abdullah

Blinken returns to Middle East and warns of risk war could spread

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US secretary of state begins visit to region as fears grow Israel could expand Gaza conflict to Lebanon

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has returned to the Middle East for the fourth time in three months as he warned Israel’s war against Hamas risked spreading throughout the region.

Recent intensifying violence between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, increasing attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and strikes by Tehran-linked groups on US bases in Iraq, have created an increasingly febrile atmosphere across the Middle East.

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Revealed: king of Jordan used Swiss accounts to hoard massive wealth

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Leak shows King Abdullah was beneficial owner of at least six Credit Suisse accounts

In 2011, as popular revolts reverberated around the Middle East, a monarch in the midst of it all made some banking decisions. Sometime that year, as neighbouring Egypt and Syria withered in the face of momentous civil protests, King Abdullah II of Jordan opened two new accounts with Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that had discreetly served the region’s well-heeled for decades.

Abdullah, one of the world’s longest-serving current monarchs, had chosen a banker that shared his approach to secrecy, particularly surrounding his personal wealth. Over the next five years, the king was the beneficial owner of at least six accounts with Credit Suisse, while his wife, Queen Rania, had another.

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Jordan court jails two ex-officials for 15 years over alleged royal plot

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Ex-royal aide Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a royal family member, convicted of plotting to foment unrest

A Jordanian state security court has sentenced two former officials to serve 15 years in prison over an alleged plot to foment unrest in the western-allied Middle East kingdom.

Bassem Awadallah, who has US citizenship and once served as a top aide to King Abdullah II; and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family, were found guilty of sedition and incitement charges. Each was sentenced to 15 years in jail.

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Did Jordan’s closest allies plot to unseat its king?

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Alleged sedition and a royal family feud may have been driven by a broader plan to reshape the Middle East

The phone call that shook the Jordanian government came in the second week of March this year. On the line to the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) in Amman was the US Embassy, seeking an urgent meeting about a matter of national importance. The kingdom’s spies were startled. Danger was brewing on the home front, they were told, and could soon pose a threat to the throne.

Within hours, the GID had turned its full array of resources towards one of the country’s most senior royals, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, a former crown prince and half-brother of the king, whom the Americans suspected was sowing dissent and had begun rallying supporters. By early April, officials had placed Hamzah under house arrest and publicly accused the former heir and two close aides of plotting to unseat King Abdullah.

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Jordan’s King Abdullah describes ‘shock and pain’ over alleged coup plot

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Monarch says authorities foiled an act of sedition with arrests of former crown prince and others

Jordan’s king has claimed authorities foiled an act of sedition with the weekend arrests of a former crown prince and 17 other people, describing the events as the “most painful” ordeal of his reign.

“Nothing can come close to the shock and the pain and anger I felt, as a brother, and head of the Hashemite family, and as a leader to this dear people,” the king said in a written statement on Wednesday.

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Jordan’s Prince Hamzah defiant after being put under house arrest

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King Abdullah’s half-brother says he will disobey the army’s orders not to communicate with outside world

Jordan’s estranged Prince Hamzah bin Hussein has said in a voice recording that he will disobey orders by the army not to communicate with the outside world after he was put under house arrest.

The half-brother of King Abdullah and the former heir to the throne said in the recording released on Monday by the country’s opposition that he would not comply after being barred from any activities and told to keep quiet.

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Jordan’s government accuses Prince Hamzah of plot to destabilise country

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Deputy PM says authorities intercepted communications between prince and foreign parties

A senior Jordanian official has claimed authorities foiled a “malicious plot” at the “zero hour”, as a new round of arrests reached the closest aide to Prince Hamzah, the royal alleged to have unsuccessfully conspired to oust his half-brother, King Abdullah, in a weekend coup.

The foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Sunday that the country’s intelligence services had intercepted a plot as it was about to be carried out. He offered scant details but said Hamzah had liaised with a foreign government to destabilise the kingdom.

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