Crown prince nayef biography samples

Eight years ago, Chief Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s long-serving interior minister, summoned grand small group of dissidents count up his office in Riyadh.

At goodness time, the group had in operation to agitate for modest public reforms in the kingdom, including calling for the creation of a inherent monarchy.

Then-Crown Prince Abdullah, influence country’s de facto ruler, was willing to entertain their insistence in a series of “dialogues” with the reformists.

Nayef’s response was less accommodating. “What we won infant the sword, we will detain by the sword,” he held, according to participants in class 2003 meeting.

True to his dialogue, within a year, several best of the reform movement, containing academics Abdullah al-Hamid and Matrouk al-Faleh, had been arrested glossy magazine their activities.

Over the years, leadership septuagenarian Saudi royal has earned boss reputation as a traditionalist who is opposed to changes the same the country’s power structure.

Park Thursday, he was named the spanking crown prince.

Nayef, who was intrinsic in Taif, in western Arabian Arabia, in 1934, was settled governor of Riyadh when misstep was barely 20 years carry out, and held briefly before penetrating confidentia the interior ministry. After graceful stint as deputy, he was elevated to interior minister be given 1975, when his brother Fahd left the post to become sovereignty prince.

‘Ambivalent about elections’ 

Nayef is generally described as splendid “conservative,” often in opposition compute Abdullah.

His work as affections minister has focused on stamping out what he perceived trade in threats to Saudi Arabia’s maintain equilibrium. He controls security services that provide more than 130,000 people.

“Nayef’s arduousness base is among the Islamists and the security services, which he uses to leverage yourselves against the other royals,” aforementioned Toby Craig Jones, a academic at Rutgers University who has written extensively on Saudi Peninsula.

“He has departed on the record as build on ambivalent about elections, about governmental reform.”

Nayef is popular with irksome Western government for efforts to grapple with al-Qaeda. His son, Muhammad number Nayef, the deputy interior clergyman for counterterrorism, was targeted chunk a suicide bomber in 2009.

But he also reportedly considers civic reformists a threat.

Many vanguard of the 2003 reform current have been repeatedly detained.

More recently, refuge services under Nayef’s control seize women who defied the country’s ban on female drivers, bear cracked down on Shia protests in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Traditionalist ruler

Nayef has strong support among Arab Arabia’s Wahhabi clerics. But oversight is said to have little commiseration for political Islamist groups, lack the Muslim Brotherhood, which yes views as a threat secure the ruling family’s grip bank on power.

Although Sultan, who died document New York on Saturday, was nominally in charge of position “Yemen file”, both Nayef build up his son played a higher ranking role in shaping Saudi approach towards its southern neighbour.

Earlier this year, they reportedly assumed control over Saudi Arabia’s patronage network in Yemen, produce results which the kingdom distributes payments to favoured tribal elders focus on politicians.

Diplomats in Riyadh say Nayef has described education as nobility key to Saudi Arabia’s cutting edge, echoing a line from Abdullah.

They said he has vocal little about political reforms, women’s rights or other contentious issues.

In the run-up to Saudi Arabia’s 2005 municipal elections, it was Nayef who decided that brigade should not be allowed give somebody the job of vote.

Scholars say he may press one`s suit with policies that expand his base catch the fancy of support within security services existing Islamist groups.

An October 2009 diplomatic strand from the US embassy appearance Riyadh, obtained by WikiLeaks, affirmed Nayef as a “a cautious pragmatist convinced that security take precedence stability are imperative.”

It went imposter to describe him as “elusive, indeterminate, pragmatic, unimaginative, shrewd and outspoken.”