KUWAIT CITY, 16 January 2006 — Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah died yesterday aged 79, after over a quarter century in power marked by the trauma of the Iraqi invasion and the fruits of unprecedented economic prosperity.
Under the constitution of the Gulf state, 75-year-old Crown Prince Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah automatically became the new emir, a Cabinet statement said.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah led a high-level Saudi delegation to Sheikh Jaber’s funeral. The king conveyed the condolences of the government and people of Saudi Arabia on the emir’s death to Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and other members of the ruling family in Kuwait.
Sheikh Jaber was laid to rest as thousands of Kuwaitis massed for a funeral ceremony attended by a number of Arab leaders, with Sheikh Saad participating in his wheelchair.
Security officials struggled against the dense crowds when the emir’s body, wrapped in a Kuwaiti flag and placed in a simple open box, was carried by relatives and aides to a common cemetery 15 kilometers west of the capital. He was buried in a section reserved for the dead of the ruling Al-Sabah family and the country’s martyrs.
Women clad in traditional “abayas,” or long black robes, wept as the emir’s body was lowered to the ground and covered with earth amid chants of “La Ilaha Illallah” (there is no God but Allah).
A 40-day period of mourning was declared in Kuwait. Government offices will be closed for three days and flags were flown at half-staff over government buildings.
Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah, who has been running daily affairs in recent years, rushed back home from Oman, where he was on vacation. Sheikh Sabah, 76, is the most likely candidate to be appointed new crown prince, but it was not immediately known whether he will also remain premier.
For the first time since Kuwait gained independence from Britain in 1961, the late emir in 2003 split the posts of crown prince and prime minister which had been held by the crown prince since 1978.
Liberal MP Mohammad Al-Sager called on the ruling family to “remain united and cohesive” to overcome this delicate situation.
The late emir was from the Al-Jaber branch and Sheikh Saad is from the Al-Salem branch of the Al-Sabah family, the two lines that have traditionally been alternating power.
Sheikh Jaber, who ascended the throne on Dec. 31, 1977, had been ill since suffering a brain hemorrhage in September 2001.
