War on Iran: Senior royal says Saudi Arabia avoided Israeli plan to 'plunge region into ruin'

War on Iran: Senior royal says Saudi Arabia avoided Israeli plan to 'plunge region into ruin' Submitted by MEE staff on Mon, 05/11/2026 - 11:18 Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote that had Israel succeeded, thousands of Saudis would have 'been lost in a battle in which we had no stake' Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki bin Faisal al-Saud attends the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue in Bahrain's capital on 7 December 2024 (AFP/Mazen Mahdi) Off Prince Turki al-Faisal, a senior Saudi royal, has said that the Gulf kingdom refused to get plunged into “an Israeli plan to ignite war between us and Iran ”. Prince Turki - who led Saudi Arabia ’s intelligence service for over two decades - was writing in the Saudi-owned Arab News over the weekend. He said that Riyadh, led by de-facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had worked hard to diplomatically resolve a war it had “initially worked hard to prevent”.