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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait who steered his tiny oil-rich country on an independent path through the Middle East’s rivalries and feuds for four decades as the country’s foreign minister and then ruler, died on Tuesday. He was 91.

An official statement read on state television announced his death. The emir had undergone surgery and was then flown to the United States for medical treatment in July, according to Kuwait’s state-run news agency, KUNA.

His death is expected to elevate his 82-year-old half brother, Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah, to Kuwait’s leadership. While the incoming emir’s policies were not yet apparent, analysts have predicted that Kuwait would continue to act as a mediator in its turbulent neighborhood, deftly navigating between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on one side and those Arab states’ enemies, Iran and Qatar, on the other.

A Persian Gulf country of 4.2 million people burrowed between Saudi Arabia to the south and Iraq to the north, Kuwait has the world’s sixth-largest known oil reserves, giving it immense wealth that has granted it a degree of independence from its more powerful neighbors.