The ambassador has no such cousin and this baseless and unproven rumor was started by sectarian Shia outlets and media. It is quite amazing that a media like the Independent is reporting it but not that strange again given the track record of English tabloid media. One just has to look at the comments below the article.
The user who started this thread has quoted a sentence that does not feature in the article at all. The sentence in red is nowhere to be found in that "article".
The sectarian Shia militias and Iraqi political parties that are controlled/under strong influence of Iran are just pressuring the ambassador. Recently one such terrorist group openly called for his murder.
However interestingly enough the ambassador has met with many Iraqi Shia Arab leaders and scholars who are not aligned with the cancerous Wilayat al-Faqih Mullah regime not to say the Iraqi Sunni Arab community and even the Kurds.
Being interview for one of Iraq's biggest TV stations.
Most Youtube comments from Iraqis are positive and our Iraqi Arab brothers and sisters are longing for better relations between brothers and sisters.
This is obvious nonsense news. There are 3000 Saudi Arabians fighting in Iraq and Syria. What is even the chance of 1 Saudi Arabian citizen out of almost 30 million (the ambassador) having a cousin fighting in Iraq in the first place? It's a joke.
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Saudi Arabia rejects false report about Al-Sabhan withdrawal
ARAB NEWS | Published — Thursday 8 September 2016
JEDDAH:
An official source at Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said there is no truth to a story published by British newspaper The Independent that the Iraqi Foreign Ministry demanded the withdrawal of Saudi Ambassador to Iraq Thamer Al-Sabhan for refusing to condemn a person named Abdul Salam Al-Sabhan, who the newspaper alleged was the cousin of the ambassador and who died while fighting for Daesh.
The official source pointed out that there is no relative of the ambassador named Abdul Salam Al-Sabhan and that the mentioned person does not belong to the family of the ambassador.
The source called on the media for accuracy and professionalism in reporting news.
There are literally 1000's upon 1000's of Al-Sabhan's across the Arab world, including Iraq, itself. I wonder if Al-Shammari or Al-Tamimi and 100's of other ancient Arab clans will be used next. In such a case at least 6 million Iraqi Arabs (Sunni as Shia) have a problem alone if Shammar and Tamim is next on the list.
As for the Farsis posting in this thread, Iraqi and other Arab affairs has as much to do with them, as with Papuans.
