{"id":31612,"date":"2017-11-18T00:10:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T19:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31612"},"modified":"2017-11-18T00:10:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T19:10:54","slug":"saudi-king-salman-to-step-down-next-week-british-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31612","title":{"rendered":"Saudi King Salman to step down next week: British report"},"content":{"rendered":"

London, Nov. 18 (TNS):<\/strong> Saudi monarch King Salman is set to step down and announce his son Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as his successor next week, British media reported.<\/p>\n

The 81-year-old king will continue as a ceremonial figurehead, handing over official leadership of the country to his son \u2014 often referred to as MBS, the\u00a0Daily Mail<\/em><\/a>\u00a0quoted royal sources as saying.<\/p>\n

The move is seen as the final step in the 32-year-old bin Salman\u2019s power grab, which began earlier this month with the arrests of over 40 princes and government ministers in a corruption probe.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless something dramatic happens, King Salman will announce the appointment of MBS as King of Saudi Arabia next week,\u201d the sources said. \u201cKing Salman will play the role of the queen of England. He will only keep the title \u2018Custodian of the Holy Shrines\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The source went on to claim that once crowned king, the prince will shift his focus to Iran, a long standing rival oil empire to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, with fears military action is possible. He will also enlist the help of the Israeli military to crush Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia supported by Iran, according to the source.<\/p>\n

\u201cMBS is convinced that he has to hit Iran and Hezbollah,\u201d he said. \u201cContrary to the advice of the royal family elders, that\u2019s MBS\u2019s next target. Hence why the ruler of Kuwait privately calls him \u2018The raging Bull\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMBS\u2019s plan is to start the fire in Lebanon, but he\u2019s hoping to count on Israeli military backing. He has already promised Israel billions of dollars in direct financial aid if they agree. MBS cannot confront Hezbollah in Lebanon without Israel. Plan B is to fight Hezbollah in Syria,\u2019 said the source.<\/p>\n

Tensions have been rising between Saudi Arabia and Iran after the Saudi government blamed Iran for a foiled missile attack near Riyadh on November 4. The rocket was fired from neighboring Yemen and was heading towards the Saudi capital before it was shot down. The Saudi foreign minister, Adel Jubair, said Iran was responsible and called the attack \u2018an act of war\u2019.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, another senior Saudi official dismissed the mounting speculation that the crown prince will soon ascend to the throne. \u201cThere is no possibility whatsoever that the king will abdicate,\u201d\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> quoted the unnamed official as saying.<\/p>\n

Saudi kings usually stay in power even when bad health prevents them from carrying out their job, the official said on condition of anonymity. He noted the example of King Fahd, who stayed on as monarch until his death in 2005 despite being gravely ill in the last few years of his reign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, Nov. 18 (TNS): Saudi monarch King Salman is set to step down and announce his son Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as his successor next week, British media reported. The 81-year-old king will continue as a ceremonial figurehead, handing over official leadership of the country to his son \u2014 often referred to as MBS, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31614,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31612\/revisions\/31614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}