E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Hassan Ammar / AP
Saudi crown prince and interior minister Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud drinks coffee and welcomes Gulf Arab leaders taking part in the Gulf Cooperation Council summit on May 14.
Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the hardline interior minister who spearheaded Saudi Arabia's fierce crackdown crushing al-Qaida's branch in the country after the 9/11 attacks in the United States and then rose to become next in line to the throne, has died. He was in his late 70s.
Nayef, interior minister since 1970, was the heir to Saudi King Abdullah and was appointed crown prince in October after the death of his elder brother and predecessor in the role, Crown Prince Sultan.
He had been in Switzerland since May for medical tests. No details were released about his illness.
Nayef had a reputation as a steely conservative who opposed King Abdullah's reforms and developed a formidable security infrastructure that crushed al-Qaida but also locked up some political activists.
Jane Kinninmont, London-based Chatham House's senior research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program, told msnbc.com that a pillar of the old authoritarian order in the Middle East would had gone with Nayef's death, adding:
"Prince Nayef was the most powerful conservative force in Saudi Arabia, running the interior ministry, the internal security forces and the religious police. He was opposed to women voting or driving. The next in line to the throne, Prince Salman, is seen as a more liberal figure, and is a bit younger, but it's all relative -- he's in his 60s rather than late 70s. Don't expect any radical change coming from the new crown prince -- more a subtle shift of tone."
The big question is who will be the third in line to the throne -- do they keep passing this role around the increasingly elderly sons of the first Saudi king, or choose someone from the younger generation? The family is huge and full of rivalries and they are likely to be increasingly preoccupied with their internal family politics -- which could prove a distraction from the need to reform and adapt to accommodate their own population's needs.
Funeral prayers for the prince would be held after sunset on Sunday, the royal court said in a statement. Burial traditionally follows immediately after prayers.
Will Saudi-Bahrain union plan provoke Iran?
Al Arabiya television reported that the prayers would be held in a mosque in the holy city of Mecca.
New heir?
Nayef's death means the 89-year-old King Abdullah must nominate a new heir for the second time in nine months. Defense Minister Prince Salman, 76, seen as most likely to continue King Abdullah's cautious reforms, has long been viewed as the next most senior prince in the kingdom's succession.
Nayef, King Abdullah and Salman are among the nearly 40 sons of Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdulaziz bin Saud, who established the kingdom in 1935.
Salman was made defense minister in November and had served as Riyadh governor for five decades.
Report: Saudi Arabia to buy nukes if Iran tests A-bomb
The New York Times called the prince "hard-line but pragmatic" in a profile that ran in October.
The article went on to quote an October 2009 American diplomatic cable that was obtained via WikiLeaks:
"Nayef is widely seen as a hard-line conservative who at best is lukewarm to King Abdullah’s reform initiatives ... However, it would be more accurate to describe him as a conservative pragmatist convinced that security and stability are imperative to preserve Al Saud rule and ensure prosperity for Saudi citizens."
Msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton and Reuters contributed to this report.
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Japan approves reactor restarts, more seen
- Motivated by fear not hope, a polarized Egypt heads to the polls
- US official: Russia sends troops to Syria as peace hopes fade
- Are Libyans turning against the West?
- Bartering takes hold in austerity-wracked Greece
- Three dead, one critical in Alberta campus shooting
- Forest Boy' mystery solved: Man admits lies over identity
- Last fugitive in 1995 Tokyo subway gas attack arrested
Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
Leave a Comment:
They forget one thing. They can not rule the world . they think they can. keep people down under their hand. One thing they have to learn. people want to be free and they don't want that type of leadership
You have to have an advanced sense of "rights" to want freedom. Their people don't have that unless they've been somewhere else and exposed to people who do. Most of them know that they get most of what could be considered "needs", and some "wants", via the royal family. Notice how much less restive KSA has been than most of the other Arab states. Only a few minor protests, some of which may have been staged for all that we know.
And in the end, even the mega rich die too.
So there IS fairness in the world I guess.
I have to wonder what his judgement day would be like.
I'm sure the "rock star" will want to fly over with the whole family, bow to royals, and then take vacation somewhere at our expense.
Bush did that already.
Yeah. Did he play golf every week? Did he use a separate airplane for his wife on most vacations? Did they go all over the world, or mostly just to his "ranch" in Texas? Did he have lavish parties with high-priced entertainers at the White House all of the time? Or did he do that, and it just didn't matter, because he and his choice of entertainers just weren't "cool"? Apples and oranges.
Saudi Arabia's policy has always been to imprison and torture anyone who spoke against them. In addition, the royal family knew about, and ignored the team of people who bombed the WTC, as did the Bush Administration. Both families of course are close friends and will do whatever it takes to avoid the truth, which is why millions of people were sacrificed in Iraq.
The CIA used their facilities to rendition people and then the Saudis tortured them for us before sending them to Guantanamo and other places we'll probably never hear about.
Don't expect anyone including MSNBC to tell the truth about these evil families or these evil policies.
They are a despicable bunch of criminals and murderers and I hope they all rot in Hell.
I'm sure FAUX NEWS is mourning the loss.
Yep, no more loyal contributor the the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy than MSNBC.
It is the year 2012 and it never ceases to amaze me that there are still kings and queens ruling the lands and that there are some countries that treat their woman like they are non-entities. I can't explain it but it just feels like these countries are SO FAR BEHIND the rest of the world in their ideas and their governments. But then again, it is NOT our country so we have to learn to mind our own business. When the people wake up they will be the one's to decide how they want to continue living - maybe they will want a government like obummer's - katrillion dollars in debt and climbing?
He and his policies were staunchly anti-Al-Qaida and were very effective.
As a hard line anti-terrorist he will be missed.
The saddest of all, is he died without knowing Jesus Christ as his Saviour. All his wealth and fame can buy him now. Is a fancy funeral.
A lot of humans against terrorism will be sad at his passing, but not the Christians, eh?
Who's Obama going to bow to now?
Who's O'Bubba going to bow to now?
Kosher pig Natanyahu and AIPAC, of course!
TheAZCowBoy, Tombstone, AZ.
Kosher pig?
You cryin 'cus they wont eat yeer beef?
O'bubba is your boy & shares your values (hates Netanyahu & Jews...opps!...I mean Israel and those you-know-whats in AIPAC)
Dhimmi-up, keep it up: and fuel up your pick-up truck yo.
bowing is a sign of respect, them sand @!$%#s or what ever you want to call them were living in lush cities in the desert, when white people were living in caves
dragging their women by their their hair
Maybe they can have a democracy instead of a dictatorship now...
And your reason for thinking that is ...
inna-lillahe-wainna -ilahi-rajaaoon, r.i.p
All these Saudi familes soaked in wealth. As a blue collar worker I have always found it ironic that with all the money and riches these so called "princes" have accumulated through nothing more than oil profits they never pay homeage or even recognize the true "princes" behind every dime they've ever made that are the designers of drill bits, pumps, valves and pipes that carry every drop of their prescious crude to hundreds of oil tankers awaiting fill up in the Gulf. I'm sure somewhere in the world today theres thousads of poor penniless broken back laborers that probably devoted their entire lives to drilling every hole and connecting every length of pipe across the Saudi Desert for this Saudi family who have never been rightfully compensated with some sort of pension, never mind receive as much as a thank you for the years of sweat they put into making this family as rich as they are today..
You shouldn't be envious of other peoples' money.
Did these designers get their pay check? Do the people that work the field get their pay checks? Well then, they got their homeage! If blue-collar workers want a better life, they should become white-collar workers!
If we redistributed everything today, the world would look "unequal" in a very short time. Check out what happens to lottery winners. Actually, one of the first three laws of thermal dynamics is that entropy in the universe is constantly increasing. It's no different anywhere and seems to be natural law rather than the other way around.
Alan: Have you ever read a book called "The Bell Curve?" It discusses that very theory. Certain people will always rise above the median.
Oh, but in the coming war the Iranians will send them a few dozen al-Shahab III IRBM missiles and bring the whole Saudi oil industry crashing on their heads and then what? American files for bankruptcy protection before the Chinese VISA creditors reposses Manhatan Island, Washington DC and all of NYC, jajajaja!
Hey Big Bald Guy. I am proud of what I do and would have chosen a blue collar job over any white collar regmental job any day. Having put my years of college in I came to the realization at an early age that persuing a white collar career would amount to nothing but having to wear a suit and tie, punch a time clock and socialize with uninteresting ego maniacs that measure thier sucess by the cars they drive and the cookie cutter grid boring homes they live in. Luckily my brother who was a GC taught me skills to be a carpenter which enabled me the freedom to move to any state in the union and apply for work not by filling out an application of submitting a resume but by beng accepted due to physical strength and motor skills. To envision what my life would have been like having to maintain my presentable appearance 365 days a year all in the name of corperate greed is something I could never surrender my soul to...
You sound very angry there, and full of BS. I must have hit a nerve.
You put your years in college in? Obviously spelling was not a requirement!
You do not have to apply for a job being a carpenter? Ha!
You rely on your physical strength and motor skills? What happens when they go away? What will you do then, be another angry wannabee talking about what if...
He has to be very educated. He knows how to turn bold on!
....at least its more honest than a pedantic rant.
You white collar dorks are who we build these castles for. You stand there in awe of what we can achieve in a day almost mesmerized by an arched entry way, a custom handrail that contours around a staircase that your friends and guests will marvel over that puts you in the status of "elite" among your golf and tennis pricks. You throw thousands and thousands of dollars at us and your local Home Depot to "one up" what your friends have. You are suckers to consumer crap that is made of nothing more than simulated wood grain and plastic. There's always got to be one room bigger, better and we will keep taking your money to make you happy. As Dave Mathews once sang "..in the end it all piles up to one big nothing, one big nothing at all" Keep piling that crap in. Fill those track homes with more and more and more til there is no room for you to move within the walls of debt. The most important tool of your lives is to make sure that automatic garage door functions so you can close the world outside off to any socializing with your neighbors less than 20 feet away, so close are your houses that they can actually smell that low budget Dominos Pizza as it arrives at your front door. Keep that mentality and in time it will swallow you and your family whole. At least I can say I am completely debt free, no truck payments, no charge cards and pay for all purchases with cash only. That lifestyle of greed and pretentious substance is a thing of my past. Gone are the need to own three different brands of mountain bikes, the latest and greatest jets skies, dirt bikes and snowmobiles. My life is more managed than yours will ever be Bald Guy and I walk proud with no monkeys on my back...
Hey there Mr. Bold Type - I one-upped you - I bold and italicized: You know nothing of me, where I came from, or where I am now. You make more of a fool out of yourself with every bold word you type. The rest of us are laughing at you - can't you see that?
I bet the sight of those track homes you build but cannot afford looks pretty good out of that dirty window in your trailer home...
BTW - I spoke to a few of your customers and they told me you do lousy work. Hahahaha.
Mr. Strength and Motor Skills:
BTW - You're wrong. Only two different brands of mountain bikes and 4 different brands of road bikes! LMAO.
Its easy to pay cash for a $1000 55 year old trailer home that leaks and a $200 POS pickup with 255 air conditioning (2 windows open at 55 mph). If you love yourself and your lifestyle so much, why are you so angry? You give yourself away...
Wrong yet again...All wood post and beam tenon fit mountain home built over the course of a year and a half with the help of good friends and relatives, similar to that only found in homes built by The Amish in this country. Not much stucco or MDF crap found from your local Home Depot where you live. The only outside commercial crap used was my surrendering to a concrete pour for the foundation, other than that all hand built joint by joint with heart soul and pure cold hard cash. No mortgage and no banks trying to squeeze my life by thir rules..
Don't forget to oil that garage door opener bald head. Wouldn't want to gain any love of your fello neighbor, nor fellow man for that matter. Keep it all contained in that place you call heaven so no one gets to share all those precious posessions you value so much..."Mine! Mine! Mine!..All Mine!"
Because he has to share the air with pedantic, greedy sometimes hairless trolls deficient in motor skills...and originality.
i lived there four yrs they are not about no bull@!$%#, if you want to lived
somewere were there is no bull@!$%# go to saudi, i mean drug dealers off with the head, child molesters off with the head, thieves just off with the hand that stole,
arabs, live and die like pigs. is it irony?
fortunately, there is more in the royal pigsty to choose from.
maybe there will be a "true" leader that will reign in the out of control muslim world.
The Saudi royal family were the ones that bankrolled 9/11. The Bushs didn't care because the were pretty far into their pockets. We the taxpayer got to spend some of our hard earned money by flying those of them (in the USA) back home for free on government aircraft.
You do get the difference between the Saudi government and Saudi subjects, don't you? The bin Laden family made a fortune building so much of the infatstructure that was purchased with petrodollars in the Arab world. Osama became a fundamentalist as an adult, while most of the other members were quite content with a largely Westernized lifestyle. The hijackers rejected that. The Saudi royal family loves order. These guys were a threat to it, so they were more than happy to see Osama, and his followers, live overseas and plot against other people more than they did them.
He's as fat as a union boss.
I wonder how many Chinese and Russian agents roam the net seeking to undermine gov'ts through comments stoking hatred and distrust to meet their goals?
That being said, I voted for Obama, but after he said he would not enforce the laws of Congress (immigration)...I will not vote for a president who is willingly derelict in his duties to uphold the law...all parts of it, not just the ones he likes. If you don't like it then propose a change to the law, oh you can't with the current Congress...well then you still have your duty Mr. President. You just lost an independent voter. You spit in the faces of all who come here legally, and all who are here now. Either this will be a failed policy, or you will have single handedly just caused a mass rush of millions of Mexicans (yes Mexicans, 98% of the rest try legally) trying to get their kids here. Maybe we should all vote on how our money is spent. Every election I see ballot measures to be voted on by the people of that state...how about we do that in a national election...there is a mandate:)
1) You couldn't see this coming from Pres. Obama a mile off? He's always acted like his oath entails "seeing the laws that I really like and approve of are faithfully executed".
2) That has something to do with the topic?
Douglas. So the only important thing is immigration. Just like the only important to conservatives is abortion. Gee, I wonder if anybody will vote for the Country of America. America has been good to us, and we return the favor by being hateful to each other.
My ancestors brought my family here when they were young hoping to leave them here better off. Say around 1620 and forward.
Someone once said "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world only to lose his soul in the end."
Now if I can just conquor the world and keep my soul...
Finally, I understand why the stock of Haliburton (HAL) and Chesapeke energy (CHK) went up precipitously on Friday. The big oil cognoscenti knew of the death or imminent death of the Suadi Arabian Prince and the resultant turmoil in the markets. I'd hold my nose and buy these stocks. In the interest of fairness of disclosure (something Fox news and Rush Limbaugh don't do), I own 800 shares of stock apiece in them. I really didn't expect them to start rising till Romney's election and Iran is attacked.
'Til Romney is elected?!!! Well, Pilgrim, looks like you have another 4 years to do your 'evil' planning, jajajaja.
Hey CowBoy: Where did you say you are from? Hahaha.
Are you saying that the people associated with NBC (with the exception of Kramer) DO ever disclose? And really, your "fairness of diclosure" sounds a lot like bragging on your prowess as an investor, which in "fairness" you apparently DO have!
The #2 Saudi Mafia Don has died. What now my love? Well, the Kingdom continues murdering and maiming the people of Bahrain as the Great Satan continues to (((applaud))) their criminal ways much as they do with the predator Jewish hyena's. Yassar, the Great Satan now has al-Qaeda (Syria) and the bankrupt NATO oil thief 'allies' to support in all their own personal genocidal and war crime activites. Wow, much like having James LeBraun playing point guard for the Pinal County junior college here in Tombstone, AZ. (How can you lose!) Well, let's bury the bass-terd before he stinks up the whole place from Medina to Mecca. (Meanwhile, they might consider, like in the move 'Weekend at Bernies' stuff the MF'er with peanut shells and drag him around pretending the sucker's still alive - and in power. LOTFLMAO!
Saudis are our friends.The 9/11/01 bombers were mostly saudis.Our friends are our enemies.We need new friends.Our govt and big business are in collusion to drive their own agendas,regardless of the effect it has on world opinion of the USA and it's people[us]. That last is an inference from the first 4 statements.
You in the media love to bastardize the terms"conservative" and "liberal". Conservative is by definition to CONSERVE individual liberty and GOD GIVEN RIGHTS. To be a "hard liner" either to the ideological right or the left is to be a RADICAL. When you espouse to be "liberal" and claim to be the compassionate arbiter of civil and equal rights and the champion of the downtrodden, you are fooling yourselves and lying to others as all you are doing is trying to advance your elitist, I'm smarter than you, progressive - socialist agenda. STOP trying to foist your ideology on the rest of us. You do NOT know better than ANYONE. If left to your own academic faculty lounge devices, you could not find your butt with both of your soft as a babies butt hands.
This is good for the region. These people are not the guardian of Islam, Look at the MI5 files on them. Follow them in London, Miami and other fine area for the rich and you see where all the Moslem's money goes. These people were put in power by the british after the Ottoman rule and this family has nothing to do with The Profit Mohammad.
The "Profit Mohammad". That's a good one. How about, "profits in the name of Mohammed"! They ARE the guardians of Islam as long as the Qa'ba is in their purview, even if you don't like how they are going about serving as such. They do the West a real service in many ways by being so socially backward and putting Islam in such a negative light.
They seem like inbred hillbilly's to me.
This is a good thing for the region. These people are not the guardian of Islam, check the MI5 files on them or follow them in london, miami and other places like that. This family has nothing to do With the profit Mohammad. This family and others in that region were put in power by the british government after the defeat of Ottoman rule.
You are utterly right
This only means to me that Gas prices will go 50 cents during the next three months.