King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has died

[Dalton]

The king of Saudi Arabia has been in the hospital recently for pneumonia, and I've been hearing rumblings that he may have died. Saudi TV apparently has cut to Koranic verses, which usually means a senior royal has died. No confirmation yet.

Naturally his death may have a huge impact on the oil market, but I'm wondering how it'll affect relations with the US. Haven't they been funding terror cells?

EDIT: The Crown Prince has confirmed the death of King Abdullah: Link

[Elheru Aran]

Well, may he go to the afterlife he deserves, whichever one that is, if there's one for him.

As I understand it, it's not the primary Saudi royal family that has been linked to terror cells, it's members of the extended Royal Family, which is obscenely huge thanks to Ibn Saud's massive harem. There's no direct connection that can be made or there would have been much more of a flap about it by now.

[Thanas]

He still sponsored Wahhabism, which is little removed from ISIS in itself. The world has one less evil in it.

[Dalton]

Crown Prince Salman has been elevated to King

[Mr Bean]

Crown Prince Salman has been elevated to King

The Crown Prince we've been grooming and being buddy/buddy with for close on fifty years now. Hail to the King, may he be friendlier if that's possible than the old King.

Little change but Salman himself is not a young man. I'm not thinking he will be in charge for more than another decade.

[J]

Little change but Salman himself is not a young man. I'm not thinking he will be in charge for more than another decade.

He's said to be suffering from dementia, though as far as I know it's never been officially confirmed. If true, yikes...

[Irbis]

Little change but Salman himself is not a young man. I'm not thinking he will be in charge for more than another decade.

Decade? He is 80 years old, rumoured to suffer Alzheimer's disease, and actually had several younger brothers die out of old age. House Saud seniority inheritance virtually ensured kingdom will be ruled by more geriatric figures than Brezhnev for the foreseeable future

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well.. Saudi Arabia is something of a ticking time bomb country... especially considering their biggest export after Oil is probably Jihadism.

[AniThyng]

Well.. Saudi Arabia is something of a ticking time bomb country... especially considering their biggest export after Oil is probably Jihadism.

Well there's always income from the Hajj...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well.. Saudi Arabia is something of a ticking time bomb country... especially considering their biggest export after Oil is probably Jihadism.

Well there's always income from the Hajj...

I think that income is smallish compared to oil.

[Dalton]

Damn. New king was an astronaut. Didn't know that.

[Simon_Jester]

Uh, no, that was his son.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Given that the new King is a senile old coot, it's likely going to be a "Madness of King George" act, just with a lot more political infighting, knife stabbing, a harem, lots of wives to boot.

[Sidewinder]

Given that the new King is a senile old coot, it's likely going to be a "Madness of King George" act, just with a lot more political infighting, knife stabbing, a harem, lots of wives to boot.

Will that include civil war (which the American War of Independence was, before the British government utterly FUCKED UP any chance of reconciliation with the Continental Congress, making the Americans stop viewing themselves as British subjects)?

[Alferd Packer]

Nothing so urgent, I think. The most glaring problem with Saudi succession is that after all of Saud's sons die (the youngest is 62), there is no clear successor. Is it the first son of the first son of Saud? Is it the first son of the most recent king? Is there going to be a king in the interim who will elevate his own son to Crown Prince? That's when you get the potential for a good ol'-fashioned war of succession.

[Joun_Lord]

Nothing so urgent, I think. The most glaring problem with Saudi succession is that after all of Saud's sons die (the youngest is 62), there is no clear successor. Is it the first son of the first son of Saud? Is it the first son of the most recent king? Is there going to be a king in the interim who will elevate his own son to Crown Prince? That's when you get the potential for a good ol'-fashioned war of succession.

Damn that just sounds bad. Probably be made worse if the US decides to stick its dick in that party when it goes down and try to pick a side. The people on the opposite side might do something stupid and try to appeal to militant douchebag groups for support.

The Saudi's have more money then sense anyway. Even if they can't get people to fight for them just by legitimacy of their claims with all their millions and billions of bucks floating about it wouldn't be hard for every Tom, Dick and Harry in the extended royal family to try to buy mercenaries to try to lay claim to the throne.

It would probably have far reaching consequences in the ME if SE turns into a complete cluster-fuck, certainly more opportunistic groups would take advantage of it.

But they will probably just attempt to sort the succession problems before it gets anywhere near that bad.

[Dalton]

Uh, no, that was his son.

I TOTALLY misread that.

[Flagg]

Good. I still believe the Saudi Royal family (members of it at least) knew 9/11 was coming (no, not literally the exact events or planning, but some major attack on the US mainland) and likely helped finance it.

[Esquire]

Based on anything in particular, or just because it seems likely?

[Flagg]

15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis.
Osama Bin Laden comes from an incredibly rich family. So rich they are above American law to the point that the US government didn't allow them to be questioned by any law enforcement organizations and evacuated them from their Central Florida mansion as soon as possible and flew them back directly to Saudi Arabia, violating their own nationwide grounding either the day of, or the day after the attacks (I can't remember which and google is being a fucker). And no, I'm not saying this was done because of truther horseshit, I'm just pointing out how powerful and influential the Bin Laden's wealth makes them virtually untouchable (and I'm sure the late king made a call to his best friend, Dubya) and because of this we don't know if any of his family living in Florida at the time (a state the hijackers spent a lot of time in, including flight training) had any knowledge of, helped to fund, or even helped plan the attacks. Why would the Saudis want them out of America so fast?
The royalty practices Wahhabiism, one of, if not the most extreme and fundamentalist Islamic "sect". I put that word in parenthesis because most Islamic scholars call it a cult. Guess who else is in this cult? Al Quaeda and, formerly, Osama Bin Laden.

That's just the top 3 off of my head.

[SpottedKitty]

The most glaring problem with Saudi succession is that after all of Saud's sons die (the youngest is 62), there is no clear successor. Is it the first son of the first son of Saud? Is it the first son of the most recent king?

One news report I read earlier quoted someone speculating that none of the next few kings will last more than a few years each. There was a comparison with the last few USSR leaders before Gorbachev, who were all Stalin-era (very) Old Guard.

[J]

Nothing so urgent, I think. The most glaring problem with Saudi succession is that after all of Saud's sons die (the youngest is 62), there is no clear successor. Is it the first son of the first son of Saud? Is it the first son of the most recent king? Is there going to be a king in the interim who will elevate his own son to Crown Prince? That's when you get the potential for a good ol'-fashioned war of succession.

Crown Prince Muqrin, who is King Salman's half brother is next in line. After him, it skips to the next generation as Mohammed bin Nayef (the current interior minister) has been named as the Deputy Crown Prince. Whether the official line of succession is followed is something which we can't answer right now, but officially at least, there's a clear line for future generations.

[Ralin]

Why would the Saudis want them out of America so fast?

Lack of faith in the rationality and better natures of the good people of Florida when word got out where bin Laden's family was, coupled with Bush deciding that he had enough on his plate without waking up one morning to see an angry mob parked outside the bin Laden compound on CNN?

I mean, did any of them turn out to be involved? Because unless they turned up at Tora Bora firing an AK 47 I'm going to say it was probably the right call. Even if they had known anything I really doubt they would have volunteered it anyway.

[K. A. Pital]

Good riddance to the shitpiece, I say. Too bad Saudi Arabia's ruling family consists of shitpieces basically.

[Flagg]

Why would the Saudis want them out of America so fast?

Lack of faith in the rationality and better natures of the good people of Florida when word got out where bin Laden's family was, coupled with Bush deciding that he had enough on his plate without waking up one morning to see an angry mob parked outside the bin Laden compound on CNN?

I mean, did any of them turn out to be involved? Because unless they turned up at Tora Bora firing an AK 47 I'm going to say it was probably the right call. Even if they had known anything I really doubt they would have volunteered it anyway.

None of them were ever questioned by American law enforcement to my knowledge for one, and two, there's a large gulf between letting the torch wielding hordes of irrational Americans get into their "compound" in Florida (pretty sure it was just a very secure gated community for he extremely wealthy) and torch the place after lynching the Bin Ladens. They could have easily been flown to an FBI safehouse in the middle of Bumfuck, Wyoming and been questioned.