The death of King Fahd will focus attention on the troubled kingdom. Internal calls for greater democracy, increased Islamist militancy, rising unemployment and poverty and an increasingly younger and educated population leaves Fahd's legacy with an insecure future. How far the Royal Family try and appease all the competing factions within their country and in the wider Islamic world and to remain as an country under control as an absolute monarchy is their biggest challenge. And will the West still see the Royals as the lesser of two evils?
This recent selection of images of the triubled kingdom...