Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd dies at 84

updated 1:39 p.m. ET Aug. 1, 2005

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, who cultivated a close relationship between his oil-rich nation and the United States died early Monday, the Saudi royal court said. He was 84.

Since Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, the king's half brother Crown Prince Abdullah, had been Saudi Arabia’s de factor ruler. Abdullah was appointed the country’s new monarch upon news of Fahd's death.

“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 about 2:30 a.m. ET, a senior Saudi official in Washington told The Associated Press. President Bush was alerted within minutes of Fahd’s death, the official told The AP on condition of anonymity. The king’s funeral was to be held Tuesday evening, he said.

President Bush called newly appointed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Monday to express condolences over the death of King Fahd and to congratulate Abdullah on his succession to the throne.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who announced the phone call, said a U.S. delegation would attend Fahd’s funeral. He said the delegation hadn’t been chosen yet. Bush will not attend the services, McClellan said.

Saudi TV 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 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 AP 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 at home and abroad, officials said he was suffering from pneumonia and a high fever.

Rise of extremism
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.

ENCARTA SAUDI ARABIA: Maps, facts and figures

The close relationship Fahd 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 the strict strain of Islam that has developed in Saudi Arabia, called Wahabism, for fueling terrorism.

Crown Prince Abdullah has led the country’s battle against Islamic extremism and terrorism. Abdullah oversaw a 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 introduced the kingdom’s first elections ever — municipal polls held in early 2005.

Stronger U.S. ties
Before assuming power, Abdullah had not been happy with Saudi Arabia’s close military alliance with Washington and a perceived bias toward Israel, but has recently 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.

Saleh Rifai / AP King Fahd, right, and Crown Prince Abdullah, left, are shown in Riyadh in 1981.

Visitors who saw King Fahd after his 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.

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.

Fahd 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 and women from mingling.

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