Prince Bandar bin Sultan has been appointed appointed Saudi Arabia’s new spy chief. (AFP)
By AL ARABIYA WITH REUTERS
Saudi Arabia’s prince with the twinkling eye, hawkish views and fondness for the Dallas Cowboys football team is back, now heading the kingdom’s intelligence agency.
On Thursday night Prince Bandar bin Sultan was appointed Saudi Arabia’s new spy chief at a moment when the world’s top oil exporter is engaged in a bitter rivalry with Shiite Muslim power Iran played out in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain.
The sociable Bandar, 63, who vanished from public view when he was recalled from Washington by King Abdullah in 2005 after notching up 22 years as the kingdom’s ambassador there, will immediately be thrust into a game-changing Middle East crisis.
“He’s just the right person for the right time in Saudi. They have a more hawkish foreign policy and he’s the leading hawk of the House of Saud,” said David Ottaway, Bandar’s biographer and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
The United States’ closest Arab ally is a firm supporter of the Syrian rebels now battling in Damascus to oust President Bashar al-Assad and is mending fences with Washington after a disagreement over last year's Arab uprisings.
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