Observers had pointed to an emerging power struggle between Mohammed bin Salman and his cousin crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, 56, whom he replaced as heir to the throne and interior minister on Wednesday. Prince Muhammad bin Nayef backed the royal decrees in a letter to King Salman, according to a senior Saudi official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Salman had already set a precedent for removal of a crown prince when, in April 2015, he appointed Mohammed bin Nayef and fired Prince Moqren bin Abdul Aziz bin Saud, an appointee of the late King Abdullah.
"Finding alternative succession mechanisms was only a matter of time in Saudi Arabia", he told TIME in an email."The former system by which sons of the founder, King Abdulaziz, would pass the throne on horizontally had to shift down a generation at some point".
Last year Mohammed bin Salman, or "MBS" as he is widely known, announced sweeping changes aimed, as he put it, at ending the kingdom's "addiction" to oil, part of his campaign to tackle systemic challenges that the kingdom has previously failed to address.
According to King Salman's decree, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 31, will be the Deputy Prime Minister while continuing as Defence Minister, BBC reported. Rights groups say Saudi forces have killed scores of civilians and have called on the USA, as well as the United Kingdom and France, to halt the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia that could be used in the Yemen war.
"The shakeup in the Saudi line of succession comes as the kingdom and other Gulf Arab states continue a feud with Qatar that has seen borders close and trade shipments halted", NPR's Peter Kenyon reports for our Newscast unit.
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Isaac Klausner will executive producer while DreamWorks Pictures will co-finance the film. It was ultimately his decision of who would be the first man to step onto the moon.
"It gives allies and the Kingdom's counterparts a clear indication of who is in charge today and who will lead the Kingdom, potentially for decades". But the abrupt move has come as a surprise to many: When Prince Mohammed bin Naif became crown prince two years ago, he was the first member of his generation to rise to the top of the royal family.
He added that Mohammed bin Nayef supported the decision in a letter sent to the king.
In another sign of a generational shift, Bin Nayef's replacement as interior minister is a 33-year-old relatively unknown prince named Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef.
Bin Salman will serve as deputy prime minister while continuing to function as defense minister and head of the economic council.
The newly crowned prince has been a vocal advocate against Iran. He also vowed to take "the battle" to Iran and dismissed the possibility of a dialogue with Tehran.
The rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been fought with regular proxy wars mostly due to the deepened Sunni-Shiite enmity on both sides.
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