Admin l Wednesday, June 21, 2017
RIYADH, Saudi. Arabia – King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, has picked his son, Mohammed Bin Salman as crown prince to succeed him.
He replaces Mohammed Bin Nayef who has been removed as crown prince of the kingdom. Mohammed Bin Salman who is currently the Defense Minister is barely 31.
Born August 31, 1985, the prince amassed “extraordinary power and influence very quickly” after his father ascended the throne in January 2015, said Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“He’s clearly very bright, very intelligent, very on top of all his briefs” and has significant influence on the 81-year-old monarch, one Western diplomat said.
He is also chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, which coordinates economic policy. As defence minister, the prince supervises the Saudi-led coalition’s operations in support of the Yemeni government against Al Houthi rebels who took over the capital Sana’a in a coup in 2014.
A law graduate from Riyadh’s King Saud University, Prince Salman is married and blessed with two boys and two girls. He spent many years working for his father when he was governor of Riyadh until he was made crown prince from 2013 to 2015.
“He has a reputation for being aggressive and ambitious,” Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who directs the Brookings Intelligence Project in Washington, has said.
