Saudi Arabia tried to stoke unrest in Iran and undermine its interests in the region, according to a trove of documents purportedly obtained from the kingdom’s foreign ministry and published by WikiLeaks.
The documents offer what would be a rare glimpse into the workings of one of the reclusive kingdom’s most outward-facing ministries. Many are from 2011-2013, though some date back to years before that.
Cables purportedly from Saudi intelligence and the Saudi embassy in Tehran, suggest ways that popular discontent with the regime could be harnessed.
The leaked documents couldn’t be independently verified.
“It is possible to use the Internet and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and others to expose Iranian practices,” the cable said. “Members of Iranian opposition abroad must be embraced and coordinated with and encourage them to organize exhibits to feature images of torture committed by the Iranian regime against its people and other peoples in the region,” it added.
Osama Nugali, a Saudi foreign ministry spokesman, claimed on Saturday that many of the documents “have been clearly fabricated.” He played down the significance of the leak, saying the documents “didn’t give any information other than that formerly announced by the ministry” on international or regional issues.
The cables posted on WikiLeaks predate the current conflict in Yemen where Saudi Arabia and Iran are on opposite sides. Saudi Arabia since March has led a coalition of countries carrying out airstrikes across its southern border in Yemen.
The strikes, which the U.S. is supporting, aim to unseat the country’s pro-Iranian Houthi rebels and reinstall exiled president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
A group calling itself the Yemen Cyber Army took responsibility last month for a hack of the Saudi foreign ministry and released several thousand documents on file-sharing sites, while alluding to a much larger cache. In a statement accompanying the files, the group pointed to Saudi intervention in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and Lebanon among motives for the attack.
WikiLeaks made reference to the intrusion in its statement on the release, though it wasn’t immediately clear how the Yemen Cyber Army attack was linked to the WikiLeaks publication.
WikiLeaks publishes classified information submitted anonymously. Its website is best known for leaks in 2010 of U.S. documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as thousands of diplomatic cables.
The documents on WikiLeaks published on Friday show Saudi Arabia seeking in ways big and small to channel its animosity toward Iran.
A 2012 cable by former foreign minister Prince Saud Al Faisal to the royal court of then-King Abdullah said the prince strongly supports a proposal by a Saudi media executive to establish a Persian-language television channel to challenge Iran’s “hostile media policies and fake news.”
A cable from the same year, signed by the assistant foreign minister, urges the ministry’s undersecretary for protocol not to allow members of an Iranian diplomatic mission-including the Iranian ambassador-to use the executive offices in Saudi airports or offer any special facilities for the mission.
The cable also orders “the application of strict inspection customs procedures on members of the Iranian diplomatic mission in the kingdom upon their final departure.”
An Iranian spokesman at the United Nations didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Embassies of the Sunni kingdom were also instructed to monitor Shiite Iran’s activities as well as Shiite minorities in other countries.
