Message #74628 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, who moved his country closer to the United States but ruled in name only since suffering a stroke in 1995, died early Monday, the Saudi royal court said. He was 84.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the king's half brother and Saudi Arabia's de factor ruler, was appointed the country's new monarch. "With all sorrow and sadness, the royal court in the name of his highness Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and all members of the family announces the death of the custodian of the two holy mosques, King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, " according to a statement read on state-run Saudi TV by the country's information minister. Fahd died at approximately 2:30 EDT, a senior Saudi official in Washington told The Associated Press. President Bush was alerted within minutes of Fahd's death, the official said on condition of anonymity. Saudi TV, which said the king was 84 years of age, broke with regular broadcasting to announce Fahd's death. Quranic verse recitals followed the announcement by the minister, Iyad bin Amin Madani, whose voice wavered with emotion as he read the statement. Madani said only that the king died of an illness. Fahd died at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where he was admitted on May 27 for unspecified medical tests, an official at the hospital told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because news of the monarch's death had not been officially announced at the time. At the time of his widely publicized hospitalization that caused concern home and abroad, officials said he was suffering from pneumonia and a high fever. During his rule, the portly, goateed Fahd, who rose to the throne in 1982, inadvertently helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism by making multiple concessions to hard-liners, hoping to boost his Islamic credentials. But then he also brought the kingdom closer to the United States and agreed to a step that enraged many conservatives: the basing of U.S. troops on Saudi soil after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In his last years, Fahd was more of a figurehead than the actual ruler - so he was sidelined as the close relationship he nurtured with the United States deteriorated after the Sept. 11 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and many in the U.S. administration blamed kingdom's strict Wahabi school of Islam for fueling terrorism. King Fahd's debilitating stroke in 1995 confined him mainly to a figurehead role in the kingdom. Crown Prince Abdullah has been Saudi Arabia's de facto leader since then and has led the country's battle against Islamic extremism and terrorism. Abdullah oversaw the crackdown on Islamic militants after followers of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden launched a wave of attacks, beginning with the May 2003 bombings of Western residential compounds in Riyadh. Abdullah also pushed a campaign against extremist teaching and preaching and introduced the kingdom's first elections ever - municipal polls held in early 2005. And Abdullah - who before coming to power had not been happy with Saudi Arabia's close alliance with and military dependence on the United States and Washington's perceived bias toward Israel - rebuilt the kingdom's ties with the U.S. He visited President Bush twice at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, most recently in April 2005. Visitors who saw King Fahd after his 1995 stroke reported he was barely aware of what was going on around him and could not recognize those who shook hands with him. Foreign dignitaries usually were allowed brief meetings with him, their visits lasting only as long as it took to film TV footage for the state-run stations. He was usually accompanied by close family members to avoid any potential embarrassment. On newscasts, the king was shown seated as he extended his hand to visitors or sipped coffee. Occasionally, policy statements, comments or speeches were issued in his name, and he was shown chairing ministerial meetings when Abdullah was out of town. Fahd, born in Riyadh in 1923, was proclaimed the fifth king of Saudi Arabia on June 13, 1982, three years after two events that would fuel the rise of Islamic extremism in Saudi Arabia. In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic in Shiite Iran and, in the same year, radical Muslims briefly took over the holy mosque in Mecca, proclaiming the royal family not Islamic enough to rule. Those developments, coupled with the king's reputation as a former gambler and womanizer, made the liberal-leaning Fahd move toward appeasing the country's powerful religious establishment, including the morals police who enforce the strict social codes that oblige women to veil and ban men nd women from mingling. Saudi Arabia did not want Shiite Iran to be seen as more Islamic than the Sunni kingdom, birthplace of Islam. So Fahd took the title "custodian of the two holy mosques" - referring to Islam's holiest shrines at Mecca and Medina - and he poured millions of dollars into the religious establishment and into enlarging fundamentalist universities. In the 1980s, Riyadh, Washington and Islamabad mobilized Islam to fight Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. Millions of Saudi riyals were donated to that effort and thousands of Saudis joined the jihad, including bin Laden, in a recruitment drive encouraged by the government. The king's official biography says Fahd was "an ardent supporter" of the Afghan mujahideen. But after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Fahd, like U.S. and Pakistani officials, gave little attention to the mujahideen, who turned that country into a training ground for their attacks, including the 9/11 suicide hijackings. Earlier in his rule, Fahd was credited with turning Saudi Arabia into one of the Middle East's most modern states despite tribal traditions and Islamic fundamentalists' fears that modernization would dilute Muslims' faith. mediacare http://www.mediacare.biz [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
