Trump's son retweets posts linking Khashoggi to al-Qaeda

The eldest son of US President Donald Trump has retweeted posts portraying Jamal Khashoggi as a terrorism sympathizer amid mounting criticism of Washington's inaction on the fate of the missing Saudi dissident.

Donald Trump Jr. retweeted an exchange between conservative journalists Patrick Poole and Sean Davis on Khashoggi, who vanished at Riyadh's consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul on October 2.

Poole shared images from a 1988 Arab News article Khashoggi wrote showing him holding a rocket-propelled grenade with Afghan Mujahideen fighters opposing the Soviet Union.

Khashoggi had also interviewed Osama bin Laden, the co-founder of al-Qaeda militant group, during the 1980s and ’90s.

The article and pictures were proof that Khashoggi was “tooling around Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden," Poole said, adding, “He’s just a democrat reformer journalist holding a RPG with jihadists."

Davis commented on Poole’s tweet, claiming Iranian influence over the media's reporting on Khashoggi in order to damage US-Saudi ties.

"Huh. It's almost like reality is quite different than the evidence-free narratives peddled by media with a long history of cooperating with or getting duped by Iran echo chamber architects," Davis tweeted.

Trump Jr. retweeted Davis' comment.

PressTV-Turkey obtains recordings of Khashoggi's murder: Paper

Pro-government Sabah daily says Turkey has obtained recordings indicating that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured and killed.

The disappearance of Khashoggi has put the spotlight on the close relationship which Trump's family has nurtured with the Saudi kingdom. 

With pressure mounting on President Donald Trump to take action over the suspected murder, he said Saturday that the United States would be “punishing itself” if it halted weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.  

Trump defended a $110 billion arms deal he announced with Riyadh last year, insisting that the deal was worth 450,000 jobs inside the US. He brazenly said Thursday that he was not willing to throw away billions of dollars in military deals with Saudi Arabia.

Khashoggi, a Virginia-based critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week for some paperwork regarding his divorce, but he never exited the mission.

The Washington Post reported that bin Salman had himself ordered an operation targeting the journalist, a former Saudi government adviser.

The American daily further reported that US intelligence had intercepted communications between Saudi officials discussing a plan to lure Khashoggi back to the kingdom and detain him. 

Turkish investigators said that they believe Khashoggi had been killed by a 15-member “hit squad” and that audio and video recordings prove it. 

US lawmakers have threatened to block weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's suspected murder, but Trump has been reluctant to stall lucrative arms exports to the regime.

Khashoggi had fled Saudi Arabia last September and had been living in self-imposed exile in the United States, where he had applied for citizenship.

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