What was behind the Khashoggi killing?

Washington Times:

The prevailing narrative about the bizarre case of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is that Saudi Arabia’s hard-charging young crown prince ordered him kidnapped and perhaps killed in order to silence a particularly effective critic who wrote widely read, disparaging columns about the royal family and the crown prince’s own ambitious reform agenda.

But Middle East insiders say some deeper subplots played into Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance — stemming from his long career of political activism, ties to Saudi intelligence and Mr. Khashoggi’s past relationship with the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mr. Khashoggi, who was 59 when he disappeared at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, is said to have withdrawn years ago from any formal affiliation with the Brotherhood, but his past ties to the transnational Islamist group are believed to have been a source of distrust for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The 33-year-old prince branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and one of his signature moves as heir to the Saudi throne was to cut off all ties with the rival Gulf nation of Qatar. The prince blames Doha for financing the Muslim Brotherhood to foment unrest against the powers that be across the Arab world, in particular Saudi Arabia.

Since leaving Saudi Arabia for self-imposed exile in the U.S. last year, Mr. Khashoggi has worked to create an advocacy group called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) to promote Arab Spring-style freedom movements across the Middle East.

Some say Mohammed, who has a reputation for quickly identifying and crushing any threats to his authority, was well aware of Mr. Khashoggi’s political activities and likely more concerned about them than his journalistic efforts as a columnist for The Washington Post.

Longtime regional analyst and former Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House said in the newspaper this week: “Those who watch the crown prince closely say he is determined to pre-empt any hint of possible disruption before it can materialize.

“So Mr. Khashoggi’s decision to register in the U.S. a new political organization, perhaps funded by Saudi regional rivals, might have triggered this action,” wrote Ms. House, who is also the author of an influential 2012 book on Saudi Arabia.

The New York Times, citing interviews with longtime friends of Mr. Khashoggi, reported that he was in the midst of raising money for DAWN when he disappeared in Turkey, whose own government is a rival to Saudi Arabia in the Muslim world and has close ties to Qatar and to the Muslim Brotherhood.
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The descriptions of the alleged killing of Khashoggi suggest something besides a whack job.  If that were the aim, it would have been much easier and less messy to just have him shot at a distance by a marksman. 

The description of the cutting off of fingers and dismemberment suggest an attempt to extract information from Khashoggi.  It is reminiscent of the actions taken against someone with information of value.  It could be that there was interest in finding out who else might be working with him on DAWN.  The people handling the operation may have been trying to find whether there are allies in Saudi Arabia or if Qatar was behind DAWN.

Such an operation could have gotten out of hand if Khashoggi was either unwilling to cooperate or had no information of value.