Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who ruled the Islamic regime for the past 20 years, has died, according to Saudi state TV. He was 90.
Abdullah was born in Riyadh in 1924, one of the dozens of sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Abdullah was selected as crown prince in 1982 on the day his half-brother Fahd ascended to the throne. He became de facto ruler in 1995 when a stroke incapacitated Fahd and ascended to the throne when Fahd died in 2005.