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As other commenter pointed out, we don't have enough information to judge the situation beyond reasonable doubt.

MBS was selling himself as a reformer and everybody deserves a benefit of a doubt. Maybe it was of one the generals that decided to kill the journalist. Why would MBS risk all the deals he has made and about to made? Oil doesn't give him that much leverage right now and sanctions could topple the government.

I'm not trying to make a case for or against him. It's impossible for an average person to know what is going on exactly.

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Yes you can know. It is not like this was the first bad thing Saudis have done under his command.. Not to mention the usual evils of such oil nations like spending bilions on personal yachts, art, mansions, etc..., having slave-like labor in your country, kidnapping, behedings for many non-crime (in civilised world) things, etc. "reformer" thing is a joke and a mask.

>Yes you can know. It is not like this was the first bad thing Saudis have done under his command.

Depends on how bad you're talking about.

Saudis are not known as people who kill in other countries. They actually have a robust reputation of kidnapping them and bringing them to KSA (and even of the known kidnapped ones, I think all are still alive). Even within the country, they're known more for making people disappear - temporarily. As in family has no idea where the person is - but usually find out about a year later - and the person is usually in prison - not dead.

Saudi Arabia is known for executing dissenters - but not in a shadowy manner. They arrest, they bring serious charges, and then execute publicly. When they do this often enough, there is not much rationale for them to assassinate people in their own country in a hidden way.

I feel that just because we know of many brutish things the Saudis have done in the past, we are extrapolating to things they likely do not do often. The opposite of the halo effect, if you will. I've seen this often, where people conflate the different Middle Eastern countries and attribute the problems in one country to those in the other - without evidence (e.g. believing honor killings are common in Saudi Arabia).

I don't believe this scenario is at all the norm amongst the Saudi government. I could be wrong, and would be happy to be shown otherwise.

> Saudis are not known as people who kill in other countries.

What about Yemen? What about so many extremist Islamist organisations having roots in Saudi Arabia? The 9/11 highjackers, Muslim Brotherhood, funding and military support Saudis give to "rebels" in Syria and Libya?

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say. The killing of the journalist is nothing like all the other things you mentioned - and some are so broad it's almost like saying "Saudi Arabia is a country with an intelligence arm."

It again is a case of the opposite Halo effect. Because an entity is evil in many ways, are we just going to assume they're evil in any way we like?

The parent post said Saudis are not known for killing in other countries. I gave examples of Saudis either directly killing in other countries (Yemen bombing which is very controversial) or funding / helping extremist groups that kill in other countries.

>The parent post said Saudis are not known for killing in other countries.

It was said within the context of current events. Let me revise my statement:

The Saudis are not know for killing their own citizens abroad in non-conflict zones.

The point was that if I take all the examples you listed, I could make an almost identical list about the US - funding and supporting questionable militants, direct and proxy wars, direct and proxy torture, funding extremists (Islamic and otherwise). But it would be a fairly big leap to go from there to something like "It should surprise no one that the US killed one of its own citizens in their own embassy."

(Personally, all the things you/I listed about Saudi Arabia/USA are a lot worse, in my opinion, then what happened in Turkey - but that's a separate discussion).

Not sure one can know. From all angles it looks like a very stupid and badly executed assasination plot. There are a lot more discrete ways to kill someone than flying 15 people/agents over on a private plane. Time will tell hopefully.

Unless you want to send a message, not just kill someone. Similar to Skripal.

Quite an expensive message to send, this will likely burn a lot of business/investment bridges.