Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, chief of the Gulf Nation of Kuwait, died aged 86 on Saturday, Kuwait state tv introduced.
The emir of the oil-rich nation, sandwiched between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, had dominated for 3 years.
Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Al-Sabah, the minister of the Emiri Courtroom, introduced the chief’s dying in an announcement learn on TV and posted on-line.
“With nice disappointment and sorrow, we—the Kuwaiti folks, the Arab and Islamic nations, and the pleasant peoples of the world—mourn the late His Highness the emir, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who handed away to his Lord right this moment,” the assertion learn.
No reason for dying has been revealed presently. The state information company reported in November that the emir was hospitalized with an “emergency well being drawback,” however was steady at the moment.
The late emir’s half-brother, Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, 83, was named as the brand new emir by the Kuwait cupboard on Saturday, the state information company posted on its social media.
The late chief Sheikh Nawaf assumed energy in 2020 after his predecessor’s dying, however had been crown prince since 2006, having beforehand served as Kuwait’s Inside and Protection Minister, per the BBC. The emir was identified for pardoning dissidents in 2021 and once more this yr in an try to quell inside divisions.
Kuwait is a rustic with the landmass of New Jersey, dwelling to 4.2 million folks, most overseas staff, in line with the World Financial institution. It has the world’s sixth-largest identified oil reserves.
The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait’s web site says that the oil-rich nation has “a protracted historical past of friendship and cooperation” with the U.S. When Iraq, beneath Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait throughout the Gulf Warfare, the U.S. and different nations helped expel Iraq in 1991. Kuwait offered the principle platform for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and supported facilitating the withdrawal in 2011.
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