Saudi king 'takes charge of arms sales'

UPI ^ | 7/13/2010 | UPI

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia has taken charge of arms negotiations with the United States and is seeking to downgrade the power of the defense ministry, which is run by his ailing designated heir, Prince Sultan, Paris's Intelligence Online says.

The cancer-stricken Sultan, who is the monarch's half-brother but from a rival branch of the royal family, is reported to be "enfeebled and unable to comprehend government affairs," says Simon Henderson, an expert on Saudi Arabia with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Intelligence Online, a Web site that monitors global security affairs, noted when Abdallah toured the United States, Canada and France in June his 200-person entourage didn't include anyone from the defense ministry even though his talks in Washington involved arms procurement.

Abdallah was accompanied by his sons, Mansour, Mohammed and Mashour, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and Prince Miqrin bin Abdulaziz, director of the General Intelligence Presidency, the principal Saudi intelligence service.

Abdallah appointed Miqrin, his younger half-brother, to that powerful and prestigious post on Oct. 22, 2005, part of the monarch's shake-up of the Saudi intelligence establishment only weeks after Abdallah succeeded King Fahd, another half-brother who died Aug. 1 that year after a lengthy illness.