Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ascended to the throne of Saudi Arabia after the death of his half-brother King Abdullah, taking the helm of the biggest Arab economy amid political turmoil in West Asia and tumbling oil prices.
King Abdullah, who was born in 1924, was on Friday carried into a mosque by family members wrapped in a plain shroud before his burial in an unmarked grave in Riyadh. Senior royals gathered to honour the deceased monarch, as did regional leaders. Salman, 79, was named king and Prince Muqrin, 69, another half- brother, was chosen as Crown Prince.
Salman was named as crown prince in 2012 and takes over as the world's top oil exporter faces a growing threat of militant attacks at home after joining the US-led military coalition against Islamic State in Syria. Regional rival Iran and its Shiite allies are gaining influence, while plunging oil prices are curbing Saudi Arabia's capacity to invest.
"Salman will have to deal with threatening and unstable situations along its borders with Yemen and Iraq," said Paul Sullivan, a West Asia specialist at Georgetown University in Washington. "He will have to handle the situation with Islamic State" and address the "unemployed, the underemployed and an increasingly restive youth," he said.
Reaching into the next generation of royals, Salman appointed Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Interior Minister, as deputy crown prince, and his own son Mohammed bin Salman as defence minister, Saudi State Television reported. Salman said in a speech that he would maintain the policies of his predecessor.
Abdullah's policies
Abdullah became Saudi Arabia's sixth king in August 2005 and was de facto ruler for almost a decade before that, after King Fahd was incapacitated by a stroke in 1996. His death is the third among senior members of the ruling family since 2011.
Oil prices surged after the announcement of the king's death. West Texas Intermediate for March delivery gained as much as $1.45 before paring some gains to trade at $46.62 at 12:46 pm in London. Crude prices have plunged more than 50 per cent since June, and Saudi Arabia led a group of Opec members resisting calls for production cuts to halt the decline.
Abdullah's policies helped Saudi Arabia remain mostly unscathed by the Arab Spring revolts. He allocated $130 billion in social spending in February and March of 2011 as popular uprisings spread across Tunisia, Egypt and other regional countries, toppling longtime leaders.
Regional tensions
The uprisings led to rifts between Saudi Arabia and its longtime US ally. Abdullah backed the military ouster of a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, and Saudi leaders criticised the US decision to pull back from strikes against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Abdullah had earlier urged the US to take military action against Iran, telling American diplomats to "cut off the head of the snake," according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy group that publishes leaked documents on its website, in 2010.
The emergence of Islamic State, which has seized control of parts of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate there, helped repair ties, with Saudi Arabia among the Arab nations to join airstrikes against the group in Syria.
"There have been tensions between the countries," said Jon B Alterman, director of the West Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "I don't think this transition will either resolve the tensions or result in a fundamental rupture."
Immediate challenges
Salman is well known to US officials from his long role as governor of Riyadh, Alterman said. During his tenure, Riyadh was transformed from a desert oasis into a thriving modern city of 5 million people, with office towers, sprawling villas and shopping malls.
The new king will face an immediate foreign-policy challenge in neighbouring Yemen, whose President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi, a close Saudi ally, announced his resignation on Thursday after his palace was seized by Shiite rebels. He also faces challenges at home, including high youth unemployment.
"Against the backdrop of the long standing maxim that change in Saudi Arabia occurs at the pace of a snail, the reign of Abdullah has illustrated what that means," said James Dorsey, a senior fellow in international studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "It is at best a two steps forward, one step backwards process. That process has been all the more tortured as a result of the threats of widespread discontent at home and across the region."
