Saudi King Fahd's condition 'improving'
Saudi King Fahd’s condition is stable and reassuring, Crown Prince Abdullah said today, three days after the monarch was hospitalised suffering from pneumonia.
Fahd, believed to be 82, was admitted to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh on Friday for unspecified medical tests. Officials said at the time that he also had a fever.
“The medical tests he underwent proved that his condition is stable and reassuring,” Abdullah was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying after chairing the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Yesterday, Interior Minister Prince Nayef was quoted by SPA as saying that Fahd’s health was improving.
“Thank God, his health is improving continuously,” Nayef said,
Also yesterday, a medical official at the hospital said chest X-rays showed that the king was recovering from pneumonia and his temperature was back to normal, though he remained in intensive care.
It was not clear when Fahd would be released from the hospital.
Concerned Saudis have closely followed health updates on the king, who brought the oil-rich kingdom closer to the US during more than two decades as monarch.
Fahd, king since 1982, suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995 that confined him mainly to a figurehead role. His half brother, Abdullah, has been Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader since then and is expected to become king if Fahd dies. Both are sons of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdul-Aziz.
Saudi Arabia’s strategic importance as the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves and the home of Islam’s two holiest shrines means even a stable succession could affect world markets and have widespread political fallout.
The Saudi stock market tumbled 5% earlier in the week amid reports of Fahd’s deteriorating health. His hospitalisation on Friday helped push crude oil futures to near 52 US dollars a barrel.
During his rule, Fahd’s most significant action was a step that enraged many Islamic extremists – allowing the basing of US troops on Saudi soil after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born al Qaida leader, cited the US troops’ presence as a main provocation for launching the September 11 attacks and a wave of violence inside the kingdom.
The US military withdrew all its combat forces from Saudi Arabia in 2003 after major combat operations in Iraq were declared over. But a small military contingent stayed behind in a training and advisory role to Saudi armed forces.
The king tried to balance overtures toward the West with concessions to hard-liners, hoping to boost his Islamic credentials. He had himself named the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites, in the western Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.
| Related Stories: |
|
