From the 9/11 attacks to this year’s air strikes in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s new top diplomat is a long-time Washington insider known as a well-spoken advocate for the kingdom’s foreign policy.
A frequent face on US television, Adel al-Jubeir, 53, was named yesterday to replace Prince Saud al-Faisal.
Jubeir has been Riyadh’s ambassador to Washington for eight years and previously served as the embassy’s spokesman.
Jubeir first rose to prominence defending Saudi Arabia after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi.
Insisting Saudi Arabia was not a breeding ground for extremists, Jubeir said his was country was being “unfairly maligned” in the US press.
Official biographies say little of Jubeir’s personal background.
He attended schools in Saudi Arabia, Germany, Yemen, Lebanon and the United States, before receiving a Master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University in 1984.
A fluent speaker of German as well as his native Arabic and English, he joined the diplomatic service in 1987, and was assigned to Washington.
In the 1990-91 Gulf War he was part of the “Joint Information Bureau” based in Dhahran, which organised foreign reporters covering the conflict.
He was also posted with the Saudi armed forces to Somalia in 1992 and was later made an adviser to King Abdullah.