Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah dies at 91
Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah, who was receiving treatment in the United States, has passed away at the age of 91, his office announces.
“With the utmost sadness and grief for the Kuwaiti people, the Islamic and Arab world and people of friendly nations, the Emiri Diwan mourns the death of Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait,” his office said in a statement read out on state TV.
Prior to the announcement, the television unexpectedly interrupted its broadcast and started to air Qur’an recitation, which is usually the sign of the death of a senior member of the ruling family.
He had been in hospital in the United States since July, when he underwent surgery for an unspecified condition in Kuwait,
Sheikh Sabah had ruled the country since 2006. He had also acted as the architect of the kingdom’s foreign policy for more than half a century in his capacity as foreign minister.
His designated successor is his brother, Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
The late ruler helped his country emerge from the ruins of a 1990-91 occupation by Iraq, during which few nearby states rushed to Kuwait City’s help, including Iran.
His tenure and influence over Kuwait’s policies was most notably marked by constant attempts at brokering Arab and regional peace besides balancing relations with Kuwait’s neighbors.
The emir, however, saw his attempts at realizing Arab unity in the Persian Gulf “implode after a new generation of hawkish leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led a boycott of Qatar in mid-2017,” AFP wrote.
The boycott was also joined by Bahrain and Egypt. The quartet accused Doha of supporting “terrorism” and “regional intervention.”
The move that seriously affected unity within the regional Persian Gulf Cooperation Council left the Kuwaiti emir bitter.
“The emir was worried about the [Persian] Gulf, Yemen, Qatar,” the AFP cited one Kuwaiti source as saying. The source also quoted the late monarch as saying once, “Just look at what the young people did.”
Sheikh Sabah’s twilight years also saw Saudi Arabia’s ambitious new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman organizing a wanton war against the kingdom’s southern neighbor Yemen.
The war has so far killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and dragged the entire impoverished country close to the edge of outright famine.
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