- King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz had been in hospital since December
- He took power in 2005 after the death of his half-brother King Fahd
- Earlier this month, Royal court said the king was suffering from pneumonia
- Half-brother Salman, 79, a reputed moderate, has inherited the throne
- New king's son Prince Sultan bin Salman became the first Arab astronaut
- Death of late king makes Queen Elizabeth II world's oldest monarch
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz - the powerful U.S. ally who sought to modernise the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms - has died aged 90, it has been confirmed.
The royal had been in hospital since December, battling pneumonia.
King Abdullah’s half-brother Salman has become king, a statement attributed to Salman said.
His death was confirmed on state television early on Friday morning, Saudi time, with channels cutting to Koranic verses - an action often signifying the death of a top royal.
Abdullah will be buried today following Muslim tradition that a burial should take place within 24 hours of death.
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Death: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has died aged 90 following a battle with pneumonia
King Abdullah (left) speaks with Prince Salman, the Saudi King's brother and Riyadh governor (right) before the king's departure to the U.S.
A statement released by the new king read: ‘His Highness Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and all members of the family and the nation mourn the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who passed away at exactly 1am this morning.'
One of his last decisions is thought to have been referring the case of Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes, to the High Court last week.
Abdullah - who fathered 22 children with about a dozen wives - had ruled Saudi Arabia as king since 2005, but had run the country as de facto regent for a decade before that after his predecessor King Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke.
New King Salman, thought to be 79, has been crown prince and defence minister since 2012. He was governor of Riyadh province for five decades before that.
By immediately appointing Muqrin as his heir, subject to the approval of a family Allegiance Council, Salman has moved to avert widespread speculation about the immediate path of the royal succession in the world's top oil exporter.
However, King Salman has already had at least one stroke, leading to concerns that his ill-health could mean that he was not a fit candidate for the role.
King Salman - who is now at the head of the world's top oil producing country - had recently taken over the ailing monarch's responsibilities.
He is a reputed moderate with a deft understanding of the competing demands of conservative clerics, powerful tribes and an increasingly youthful population.
King Salman, pictured arriving in Tokyo in 2014, has been part of the ruling clique of princes for decades and is thought likely to continue the main thrusts of Saudi strategic policy
The late Saudi king - pictured here with President Obama in 2010 - had been in hospital since December
In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in March 2007, described in a cable released by WikiLeaks, Salman said the social and cultural reforms instigated by King Abdullah had to move slowly for fear of a conservative backlash.
He also argued against the introduction of democracy in the kingdom, citing regional and tribal divisions, and told the ambassador that a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was necessary for Middle East stability.
He is described as a physically imposing figure, and controls one of the Arab world's largest media groups.
King Salman has been part of the ruling clique of princes for decades and is thought likely to continue the main thrusts of Saudi strategic policy, including maintaining the alliance with the United States and working towards energy market stability.
During his five decades as Riyadh governor he was reputedly adept at managing the delicate balance of clerical, tribal and princely interests that determine Saudi policy, while maintaining good relations with the West.
He was born in 1936 in Riyadh, then a mud-brick oasis town deep in the interior of a new kingdom that had not yet discovered oil, depending instead on revenue from pilgrims to Mecca and Medina, date farming and camel herding.
Yet one son, Prince Sultan bin Salman became the first Arab astronaut, flying on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985.
Prince Sultan is now the kingdom's tourism minister while another son, Prince Abdulaziz, is the deputy oil minister.
Oil prices shot up on the news of the king's death, although his passing is not expected to change the course of oil prices over the next few months.
The price of U.S. crude was up $1.07, or 2.3 per cent, to $47.38 a barrel in after-hours trading. Brent crude, an international benchmark, was up 1 per cent to $49 a barrel.
Analysts expect Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi to remain in his position for at least the next several months and for Saudi Arabia's export policy to remain the same.
America's President Barack Obama paid tribute to Abdullah, who has been an ally of Washington in its fight against terror.
‘As a leader, he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions,’ Obama said in a statement.
‘One of those convictions was his steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond.
‘The closeness and strength of the partnership between our two countries is part of King Abdullah's legacy.’
Obama said that as the two allies ‘worked together to confront many challenges, I always valued King Abdullah's perspective and appreciated our genuine and warm friendship’.
King Abdullah arrives at the the opening ceremony of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Mecca in 2012
QUEEN ELIZABETH II BECOMES WORLD'S OLDEST MONARCH
Queen Elizabeth II pictured with Prince Philip and the late King Abdullah
The death of King Abdullah at the age of 90 makes Queen Elizabeth II the oldest monarch in the world.
The Queen was born on April 21, 1926 and is 88 years old.
She became Queen at the age of 25, and has reigned through more than five decades, celebrating her diamond jubilee in 2013.
King Abdullah was born in 1924 in Riyadh, one of the dozens of sons of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.
He only had a rudimentary education, and had a strict upbringing - exemplified by three days he spent in prison as a young man as punishment by his father for failing to give his seat to a visitor - a violation of Bedouin hospitality.
Abdullah was selected as crown prince in 1982 on the day his half-brother Fahd ascended to the throne.
The decision was challenged by a full brother of Fahd, Prince Sultan, who wanted the title for himself. But the family eventually closed ranks behind Abdullah to prevent splits.
By the time he became de facto regent in 1995, when his predecessor King Fahd had a stroke, he was known to foreign diplomats as devout and conservative with strong ties to the kingdom's Bedouin tribes.
King Abdullah sought to modernise the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms, including nudging open greater opportunities for women during his 10-year reign.
The former king, who acquired a stutter as a child, was also a strong supporter education, building universities at home and increasing scholarships abroad for Saudi students.
He hoped to build a more skilled workforce in a country where more than half of the 20 million-strong population is under the age of 25.
Prime Minister David Cameron pictured in 2012 meeting King Abdullah, who has died at the age of 90
King Abdullah with Prince Charles - who is expected to attend his funeral - at the start of his 2007 state visit
However, he and fellow Sunni Arab monarchs also staunchly opposed the Middle East's wave of pro-democracy uprisings, seeing them as a threat to stability and their own rule.
Despite being allied with America, Abdullah was not afraid to push against them.
When he was regent, he pressed Washington to withdraw the troops it had deployed in the kingdom since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. finally did so in 2003.
In 2000, Abdullah convinced the Arab League to approve an unprecedented offer that all Arab states would agree to peace with Israel if it withdrew from lands it captured in 1967.
The next year, he sent his ambassador in Washington to tell the Bush administration that it was too unquestioningly biased in favor of Israel and that the kingdom would from now on pursue its own interests apart from Washington's.
Bush soon after advocated for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Abdullah was forced to negotiate tricky waters: 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, while many pointed out that the baseline ideology for al-Qaida and other groups stemmed from Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.
But when the militants began a wave of violence in the country in 2003, aimed at toppling the monarchy, Abdullah cracked down hard.
President George W. Bush and King Abdullah, pictured during the former president's visit to Saudi Arabia in 2008
For the next three years, security forces battled militants, finally forcing them to flee to neighboring Yemen.
There, they created a new al-Qaida branch, and Saudi Arabia has played a behind-the-scenes role in fighting it.
Personally, King Abdullah 'retained a love of the desert, along with a love of horsemanship' throughout his life, according to the the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.
He is also said to have loved to read, establishing two libraries - the King Abdulaziz Library in Riyadh, and one in Casablanca, Morocco.
Paying tribute to the late King, Saudi Arabian Princess Ameerah al-Taweel tweeted: 'A king that was not feared but loved by the Saudi people and the entire Muslim population.
'We did not lose a king today, we all lost a father.'
King Abdullah was admitted to the King Abdulaziz Medical City of the National Guard in Riyadh in December to undergo medical tests, according to state media.
The royal court earlier this month said the king was suffering from pneumonia and had temporarily needed help to breathe through a tube, but that the procedure was successful.
His death was rumoured earlier today, however a member of the royal family took to social media to say reports of his death were premature.
'All that is being reported about King Abdullah's death is far from the truth,' Ibrahem al-Rawsa, identified as a journalist at state-run Saudi Press Agency, wrote on his Twitter account.
In the long term, Saudi rulers have to manage the needs of a rapidly growing population plagued by structural unemployment, and an economy that remains overly dependent on oil revenue and undermined by lavish subsidies.
Saudi Arabia, which holds more than a fifth of the world's crude oil, also exerts some influence over the world's 1.6billion Muslims through its guardianship of Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest sites.
Most senior members of the ruling al-Saud family are thought to favour similar positions on foreign and energy policy, but incoming kings have traditionally chosen to appoint new ministers to head top ministries like oil and finance.
In a country where the big ministries are dominated by royals, successive kings have kept the oil portfolio reserved for commoners and insisted on maintaining substantial spare output capacity to help reduce market volatility.
Late King Abdullah wearing traditional clothing in preparation for performing the traditional Bedouin war dance using swords called the 'Ardha' in 2003
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