Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Saturday sacked the country’s deputy defence minister, Prince Khaled bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz, just a month and a half after appointing him to the position.
A royal decree cited by the official SPA news agency said the decision was taken at the request of Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, who also holds the defence portfolio.
The reasons for the move were not immediately known, and no successor was announced for Prince Khaled, who was named to the post on May 14.
The move to sack Prince Khaled came after King Abdullah met US Secretary of State John Kerry. King Abdullah has consistently called for greater US military support for the moderate Syrian rebels, whom the Gulf kingdom has long backed.
But amid concerns about a spillover from Iraq where militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have seized a swathe of northern territory, the king “did share with the secretary some steps the kingdom is taking to address its concerns about the threat,” a State Department official told reporters.
He refused to go into specifics, but stressed both the US and Saudi Arabia believed Iraq had to form a new government rapidly in order to confront the militant threat.
“The moderate opposition in Syria... has the ability to be a very important player in pushing back against ISIL’s presence... not just in Syria, but also in Iraq,” Kerry said.
On Thursday, King Abdullah instructed authorities in the kingdom to take “necessary measures” to defend it from insurgents battling the Baghdad government.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 29th, 2014.
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