ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah died on Friday at age 90 following a brief illness, passing on the monarchy of the world’s largest oil producing nation to his 79-year-old half-brother, King Salman.
“With deep sorrow we announce the death of King Abdullah,” said the new king in a statement issued by the Royal Court.
Ordinary Saudis awakened Friday to an announcement on state-run television that Abdullah, who was hospitalized in December with pneumonia and had been breathing with the help of a respirator ever since, had passed away.
The Saudi court moved quickly to ensure a smooth succession, announcing Abdullah’s half-brother Salman as the new king and another of his-half brother, Prince Muqrim, as the new crown prince.
King Salman said that Abdullah died at 1 am in the Riyadh hospital.
Salman ascends the throne of the world’s largest oil producer at a time when crude prices have tumbled and the region is reeling with the shock of militants fighting under the banner of the Islamic State, with rumors that the jihadis have been backed and financed by Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia.
Abdullah came to power in 2005 after the death of his half-brother, King Fahd.
He was seen as a reformer, but in the conservative kingdom that sees itself as the beacon of Islam for Muslims around the world, he was able to make little headway, especially on greater rights for women, who still cannot legally sit behind the wheel of a car.
Abdullah was born in Riyadh in 1924, one of the 49 sons of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. But he was the only son the king fathered with Abdullah's mother, who was from a Bedouin tribe.
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