Profile: King Salman’s youngest brother, Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz

Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the only making it through total brother or sister of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, has really been collared, according to a variety of reports, in what is frequently thought to be an effort by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman( MBS) to combine power within the royal home.

Prince Ahmed was apprehended on Friday as part of a security clampdown that likewise included the detention of Mohamed bin Nayef, the king’s nephew and previous interior minister and crown prince, a variety of United States publications reported. Both senior royals were viewed as possible options to MBS, the kingdom’s de facto ruler in succeeding 84- year-old King Salman.

More:

  • Saudi union ‘foils attack’ on oil tanker off Yemen’s coast

  • A Bernie Sanders presidency may be a problem for Saudi Arabia

  • Saudis play World Cup hardball with Qatar over airspace

According to the Wall Street Journal paper, Prince Ahmed and Mohammed bin Nayef were linked of outlining a coup to unseat the king and his kid, MBS. By Saturday, reports points that the sweep had actually broadened to include great deals of interior ministry authorities, senior army officers and others considered supporting a coup effort.

There has actually been no main remark from Saudi authorities on the arrests.

Who is Prince Ahmed?

Prince Ahmed is amongst the most senior members of the judgment Al Saud family.

He and his older brother are the last staying members of the effective “Sudairi seven”, a bloc included the 7 children of King Abdul Aziz – thought of the kingdom’s contemporary developer – and his favored other half, Hussa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi.

The brother or sisters united to primarily ensure the throne and essential ministries passed in between them and prevented of the reach of the king’s lots of other children. They include previous King Fahd, who ruled the nation from 1982 up till 2005, Prince Sultan who worked as defence minister for almost half a century prior to winding up being crown prince to King Abdullah in 2005, in addition to the existing king.

Born in the early 1940 s, Prince Ahmed got his official education in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. He later headed to the United States where he got a degree in federal government from the California-based University of Redlands in1968

Prince Ahmed served as deputy interior minister for years and was called interior minister in June2012 Nevertheless he all of a sudden stepped down after less than 5 months in the role and was altered by Mohammed bin Nayef, the other prominent detainee.

For many years, Prince Ahmed was similarly responsible for managing the administration of the holy sites in Capital and Medina.

As the youngest of the 7 Sudairi siblings, Prince Ahmed had actually been seen in the past as a possible future ruler nevertheless was avoided from the throne’s plan a minimum of two times.

Still, Prince Ahmed wielded official effect as a member of the Beya, or Responsibility Council, the body of senior royals which requires to license the accession to the throne of the next fan.

In 2017, he was amongst 3 members on the Commitment Council who opposed the young MBS winding up being the first in line to the throne and sidelining more senior princes, according to numerous media reports.

Prince Ahmed left Saudi Arabia in November 2017 prior to a significant project of arrests of royals, leading authorities and business elites, in what was billed as an effort to fight corruption among the greater tiers of the kingdom’s administration. Those apprehended were secured for weeks in the attractive Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh.

Prince Ahmed flew back to the kingdom from London in October 2018, after allegedly getting guarantees that he would not be apprehended.

While in London, Prince Ahmed appeared to honestly oppose MBS’s military campaign in Yemen, which he released in 2015 when Saudi Arabia formed a union with other Arab states to beat the Houthi rebels.

An almost two-minute video shared online in September 2018 exposed Prince Ahmed supposedly tough demonstrators opposing versus the kingdom’s function in the devastating war in Yemen why they were grumbling to him rather of the king and crown prince.

Strolling over to them, the prince asked the protesters outside his London home not to swelling the entire of the royal home into one.

” What does the whole of the Al Saud family involve this? There are particular individuals who are responsible. Do not involve anyone else.”

When asked by a demonstrator who was responsible for the war, Prince Ahmed responded: “The king and the crown prince, and others in the state.”

He similarly stated he hoped that wars in Yemen and elsewhere would stop as soon as possible.

Rapidly later, Prince Ahmed launched a brief main statement stating that his remarks were gotten of context and implied to clarify that”the king and crown prince are responsible for the state and its decisions”

.

Upon his return, Prince Ahmed has really allegedly kept his allowance and been treated with regard, however has actually kept a low profile thinking about that.

According to Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Gulf Affairs Institute and a former Saudi political detainee, Prince Ahmed, “did not have a real shot” of winding up being a king and returned “due to the fact that he did not have aspiration”.

He argued that the detention was a “precautionary” action and was not part of the expected plot.

Follow AsumeTech on

More From Category

More Stories Today

Leave a Reply