Bandar lives!

Maybe.

According to this itinerary posted by the State Department, John Kerry had a meeting with Bandar bin Sultan yesterday. That's the first official acknowledgement in almost a year that Bandar is alive.

But does that make it true? Wouldn't a simple photo-op put a lot of rumors and speculation to rest?
Bandar used to be a media-friendly guy who loved the cameras. Why all the hush-hush?

Saudi Arabia arrests 18 spies, but where's the Spymaster?

Good news out of The Kingdom today; they've broken a spy ring that was working to subvert Saudi democracy.

Yup, got them in the nick of time, and while it's early days it looks plain as day that the Persians are behind this.

But what puzzles me is that nowhere in the reportage of this story does the name of The Kingdoms's spymaster come up.

Last July Prince Bandar Bin Sultan was promoted to Director General of the Saudi Intelligence Agency by none other than King Abdullah himself.

A day or two later he was allegedly blown up by a bomb planted by Syrian agents. That story was denied by reputable sources here and there and everywhere.

Crazy thing is, Bandar ain't been seen or heard from since...

Coincidence?

Bandar where are you?

Bandar Bush, aka Bandar bin Sultan, has not made a public appearance in six months.

Or a public statement. Nothing. In years gone by you might have expected him at some of the big conflabs like Davos. Nothing.

Ever since that flurry of rumors last July that he'd been taken out by the Syrians right after assuming the top job in Saudi intelligence, he has been totally missing in action.

There have been news stories  claiming he's alive and well.

There have been news stories  claiming he's deader than the two-state solution.

So where are you, Bandar? We're hoping you're OK. The world stage isn't the same without you.

Just send a brief reply right here in the comment box at the bottom of this blog.

I'll get the word out.

We miss you pal...

Here's to the news that disappears...

I'm a hard-core news junkie. When a story disappears I notice. I miss it. I want to know where it went.

One story that I really miss is the Bandar bin Sultan story. Bandar got a promotion in the hierarchy of the Kingdom last summer. Head of Saudi intelligence. Top spook.

Cynics would say that promotion just formalized the de facto role he's played for the last thirty years.

Which could well be true.

But within days of the official announcement Bandar disappeared from the global news radar. I noticed.

The disappearance coincided with a story well out on the fringe of the blogosphere that Bandar had been assassinated, allegedly by a Syrian hit squad. That story disappeared just as fast as Bandar disappeared.

But Bandar has been missing ever since. I've e-mailed a number of government agencies in the Kingdom looking for confirmation that Bandar is alive and well. Nothing.

I've e-mailed a number of top-drawer journos who would have access to the latest insider rumors. Nothing.

Wither Bandar?

Even more troubling, the country of Jordan has disappeared. The disappearance of Jordan is an important development. Jordan is an integral part of the Syria war narrative, the Gaza war narrative, and the Arab Spring narrative. That's three high profile narratives that suddenly see one of their main actors go missing.

Wither Jordan?

And wither all that hardware that was going through the Gaza tunnels ever since the collapse of Libya? We saw little or none of it in the imbroglio of the last ten days. Mind you, there was a conspicuous absence of attack helicopters in the air. Was that a silent acknowledgement that the Stingers are in Gaza?

These are all news nuggets that a hard-core news junkie misses when they're not around. I miss those stories. I worry about them. I want to know what became of them.

I raise a glass to the stories that disappear...

Where's Bandar?

Back in July Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the long time ambassador to the US, was made head of Saudi intelligence services.

Prince Bandar is an extremely intelligent and well-connected player on the world stage. He was so close to the Bush family they used to call him Bandar Bush. He was long a proponent of getting Saudi Arabia a more outward looking orientation. To that end he favored improved relations with countries as diverse as Russia, China, and Israel.

A few days after his appointment there was a story floating around that he had been injured or killed in an assassination attempt. There were various theories to the effect that Syria was behind it, but the House of Saud denied the story and lacking independent confirmation the original news site that broke the story backed away from it.

Two months later, the story is all but forgotten, but Prince Bandar has not been seen in public since.

Coincidence?