Heir to the Saudi Arabian throne who led nation's crackdown on Al Qaeda after 9/11 attacks dies in foreign hospital

Dead: Crown Prince Nayef died yesterday, according to a statement issued by Saudi Arabia's royal family

Crown Prince Nayef – the man responsible for the day-to-day running of Saudi Arabia – has died.

The royal family said the prince, who was in his late 70s, died in hospital abroad yesterday and will be buried today after prayers in Mecca.

He left the kingdom last month for what was described as a ‘personal vacation’ that would include medical tests, but no further details about his illness have been released.

Crown Prince Nayef was the hardline interior minister who led Saudi Arabia’s fierce crackdown on Al Qaeda following the September 11 terror attacks.

He rose to become next in line to the throne last year after the death of his brother Sultan.

A new crown prince will be chosen from his brothers and half-brothers, all sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, Abdul-Aziz. King Abdullah, 88, has outlived two designated successors.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Crown Prince Nayef, who was also deputy prime minister, served with ‘great dignity and dedication’.

Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to the late crown prince for his 'leadership' and said his thoughts were with the Saudi people.

Mr Cameron said: 'My thoughts are with the Kingdom and its people at this time.

'I had the pleasure of meeting Crown Prince Nayef in January and was struck by the leadership and dedication with which he served his country for so many years.'

The figure believed most likely to be tapped as the new heir is Prince Salman, the current defence minister who previously served for decades in the powerful post of governor of Riyadh, the capital.

The crown prince will be chosen by the Allegiance Council, an assembly of Abdul-Aziz's sons and some of his grandchildren.

Still going strong at 88: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has now outlived two designated successors

A statement by the royal family said Nayef died yesterday in a hospital abroad. It did not specify where. He travelled abroad frequently in recent years for tests but authorities never reported what ailments he may have been suffering from.

Nayef had a reputation for being a hard-liner and a conservative. He was believed to be closer than many of his brothers to the powerful Wahhabi religious establishment that gives legitimacy to the royal family, and he at times worked to give a freer hand to the religious police who enforce strict social rules.

His elevation to crown prince in November 2011 had raised worries among liberals in the kingdom that, if he ever became king, he would halt or even roll back reforms that Abdullah had enacted.

Popular among hardliners: A Saudi man prays for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Nayef in front of his picture in Tabouk, 932 miles from Riyadh, yesterday

Soon after become crown prince, Nayef vowed at a conference of clerics that Saudi Arabia would 'never sway from and never compromise on' its adherence to the puritanical, ultraconservative Wahhabi doctrine. The ideology, he proclaimed 'is the source of the kingdom's pride, success and progress.'

Nayef had expressed some reservations about some of the reforms by Abdullah, who made incremental steps to bring more democracy to the country and increase women's rights.



He said he saw no need for elections in the kingdom or for women to sit on the Shura Council, an unelected advisory body to the king that is the closest thing to a parliament.

Covered up: Crown Prince Nayef was a supporter of the extreme Wahhabi Muslim doctrine and opposed reforms aimed at increasing women's rights

His top concern was security in the kingdom and maintaining a fierce bulwark against Shiite powerhouse, Iran, according to U.S. Embassy assessments of Nayef.

'A firm authoritarian at heart,' was the description of Nayef in a 2009 Embassy report on him, leaked by the whistleblower site Wikileaks.

'He harbors anti-Shia biases and his worldview is colored by deep suspicion of Iran,' it said. 'Nayef promotes a vision for Saudi society under the slogan of "intellectual security" which he advocates as needed to "purge aberrant ideas",' it added.

Nayef never clashed with Abdullah over reforms or made attempts to stop them - such a step would be unthinkable in the tight-knit royal family, whose members work hard to keep differences under wraps and ultimately defer to the king.

But Nayef was long seen as more favorable to the Wahhabi establishment. In 2009, Nayef promptly shut down a film festival in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, apparently because of conservatives' worry about the possibility of gender mixing in theatres and a general distaste toward film as immoral.

Nayef, a soft-spoken, stocky man of medium build, was born in 1933, the 23rd son of Abdul-Aziz, the family patriarch who founded the kingdom in 1932 and had dozens of sons by various wives.

He was one of the five surviving members of the Sudairi seven, sons of Abdul-Aziz from his wife Hussa bint Ahmad Sudairi who, for decades, have held influential posts. That makes him a half-brother of King Abdullah.

Before being appointed interior minister, he held the posts of Riyadh governor, deputy minister of interior and minister of state for internal affairs.