Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S.
ally who fought against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative
Muslim kingdom, including by nudging open greater opportunities for women, has
died. He was 90.
A royal court statement said the king died at 1
a.m. early this morning. His successor was announced as 79-year-old
half-brother, Prince Salman, according to the statement carried on the Saudi
Press Agency. Salman was Abdullah's crown prince and had recently taken on some
of the ailing king's responsibilities.
Abdullah
was born in Riyadh in 1924, one of the dozens of sons of Saudi Arabia's
founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Like all Abdul-Aziz's sons, Abdullah had only
rudimentary education. Tall and heavyset, he felt more at home in the Nejd, the
kingdom's desert heartland, riding stallions and hunting with falcons. His
strict upbringing was exemplified by three days he spent in prison as a young
man as punishment by his father for failing to give his seat to a visitor, a
violation of Bedouin hospitality.
Abdullah
was selected as crown prince in 1982 on the day his half-brother Fahd ascended
to the throne. The decision was challenged by a full brother of Fahd, Prince
Sultan, who wanted the title for himself. But the family eventually closed
ranks behind Abdullah to prevent splits.
Abdullah became de facto ruler in 1995 when a
stroke incapacitated Fahd. Abdullah was believed to have long rankled at the
closeness of the alliance with the United States, and as regent he pressed
Washington to withdraw the troops it had deployed in the kingdom since the 1990
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. finally did so in 2003.
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