CAIRO, Egypt — Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the heir apparent to the Saudi throne and one of the kingdom’s most powerful princes until illness sapped his strength in recent years, has died.
The Royal Court announced the death Saturday morning, saying the prince had died abroad. State television immediately switched to broadcasting Koranic verses.
Sultan, who was the minister of defense and aviation,reportedly has been battling colon cancer since 2004. He has spent periods of up to a year outside the kingdom for treatment since 2008. A U.S.
diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks described him in 2009 as “to all intents and purposes incapacitated.”
He had been admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital over the summer, where in recent weeks he had been slipping in and out of a coma, according to several sources, not wanting to speak publicly about the royal family. A U.S. official confirmed that he died at the hospital.
Sultan, at least 80 and by some accounts 85, was a member of the Sudeiri seven, seven full brothers by the favorite wife of King Abdul-Aziz, who founded the kingdom in 1932.They have formed a kind of sub-tribe within the ruling Al-Saud clan and often worked to block or stall King Abdullah’s policy-change measures. Prince Nayef, the interior minister and also a Sudeiri, is expected to be named heir apparent.
Abdullah, who is recuperating from back surgery this month, had formed a new family council to deal with succession questions, particularly when the throne might pass to a new generation. This would be the first time the 35-member council would endorse the inheritance, rather than just the king.
Given the power of Nayef, the nation’s top law enforcement officer since 1975, he is expected to be confirmed, a move also signaled by his appointment as second deputy prime minister in 2009.
The Saudi monarchy, which has sought to counter the revolutions shaking its neighbors, wants to be seen as stable while much of the Arab world is in political turmoil.Attempts to organize anti-government demonstrations in the kingdom have largely fizzled, while those that did emerge among the Shiite minority in the Eastern province were put down forcefully.
“We will not see dramatic changes in the next two or three monarchs,” said Joseph Kechichian, the author of a book on succession in the kingdom. “The change will come when a new generation comes in.”
Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington from 1983 to 2005, is a son of Sultan, as is Prince Khaled, the deputy minister of defense. Given the longevity of Saudi princes, several have turned their government ministries into personal fiefs, with their sons as their top aides.
Sultan’s death will be the first important test of whether such a crucial ministry can be inherited.
In addition, since many of his regional portfolios were held in limbo in his absence, analysts are looking at whether the country will take a more forceful role in crises like Yemen now that he is dead. “Although the late Crown Prince hasn’t been directly involved in relations with Yemen in the past few months, relations with Yemen will have to officially be moved to another senior member of the family,” said Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, a Persia Gulf-based analyst.
Sultan, appointed defense minister and head of civil aviation in 1963 after serving in lesser Cabinet posts, was long one of the four or five key princes who made most of the major decisions in the monarchy.
He became the crown prince in 2005 when Abdullah took the throne, after failing to persuade his brothers to skip Abdullah and make him king.
During his time as defense minister, he spent hundreds of billions of dollars on modern weapons systems and built a string of vast military cities that ring the interior of kingdom, including one named after himself in Kharj, outside Riyadh.
It was used by the U.S.Air Force to police the no-fly zone over Iraq for years after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The extended presence of U.S. troops on Saudi soil became a source of contention in the kingdom, with al-Qaida citing it as one of their reasons for trying to overthrow the government with a terrorist campaign in 2003.
But Sultan remained one of the staunchest supporters of the kingdom’s close alliance with the United States. He supported King Fahd in the decision to allow 500,000 U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s invasion.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 10/23/2011