Jordan’s monarch is traveling to Germany Sunday for a spine surgery, Jordan’s palace announced Saturday.
King Abdullah II, 60, will undergo a surgery to treat "a herniated disc in the thoracic spine” at a hospital in Frankfurt next week, and will return home after a recovery period of one week.
The statement from the Arab kingdom’s Royal Hashemite Court said the king suffers from intermittent spine pain "as a result of parachute jumping during his years of service in special operations,” and doctors advised him to receive the surgery as the pain increased recently.
King Abdullah ascended the throne in 1999 after the death of his father, King Hussein.