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Politics : Middle East Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (1494)	4/16/2002 4:19:14 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6945

Interesting story on the late King of Jordan, from cnn.com The story of Hussein's rise to head the kingdom carved out of the British colonial empire is one of intrigue, death and luck. Hussein's grandfather, King Abdullah, ruled Jordan from its inception in 1920 until his assassination -- at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem -- in 1951. King Hussein's grandfather, Abdullah, was killed as the young prince looked on. The gunman a Palestinian extremist, fearing the king might negotiate a peace with the newly created state of Israel, opened fire on Abdullah and his grandson on July 20 of that year as the pair walked into the mosque for Friday prayers. Abdullah was killed, but the 15-year-old Hussein pursued the gunman. The assailant turned his weapon on the young prince, who was saved when the bullet was deflected by a medal on his uniform given to him by his grandfather. At the time, Crown Prince Talal, Hussein's father, was undergoing treatment for schizophrenia in a Swiss mental hospital. He was returned to Jordan and crowned king, a position he held until the Jordanian parliament forced his abdication a year later. With his father's abdication, Hussein was named king of Jordan at the age of 17, although a Regency Council ruled for him while he completed his education in Britain. On May 2, 1953, he assumed full constitutional powers when he turned 18 by the Islamic calendar. "At seventeen, I knew the end of a dream," Hussein later wrote in his memoirs. "I would never be a schoolboy again."