AMMAN (Reuters) - King Hussein, terminally ill with cancer, returned to Jordan on Friday to die at home and an official said the monarch`s life-support system could be switched off within the next 24 hours. "His majesty is in a coma on a life-support system. It may be removed tonight," the official told Reuters. If this happened, a formal announcement of the king`s death would follow on Friday or Saturday, he said. The 63-year-old monarch was being kept on life-support after the failure of all of his major organs except his
heart. "He`s dying," a royal family member said as the king`s ambulance swept into a military hospital after his overnight flight from the United States. Presidents and prime ministers praised the Middle East`s longest-serving leader for his commitment to Arab-Israeli peace and prayed he would somehow overcome the cancer that is killing him. King Hussein - a survivor of war, unrest and assassination attempts during his 47-year reign - was being treated in a U.S. clinic for a relapse of non-Hodgkin`s lymphoma. But on Thursday, just two days after he underwent a last-ditch bone marrow transplant, his condition deteriorated sharply and specialists allowed him to fly home. "He wants to die in his own country," said a Jordanian minister. The king`s eldest son Abdullah, appointed crown prince and heir 10 days ago, was at Queen Alia airport to meet the flight along with Prime Minister Fayez al-Tarawnah and the king`s brother Prince Hassan, who was dismissed as heir last month. Abdullah, a career soldier but political novice, has been plunged into the affairs of state of a country standing precariously between the Middle East flashpoints of Israel and Iraq. Diplomats say they expect most Jordanians to rally round the 37-year-old prince when his father dies. The United States has expressed confidence Abdullah would maintain King Hussein`s commitment to Jordan`s 1994 peace deal with Israel. Word of the king`s sudden turn for the worse came first from Jordanian officials in the United States on Thursday. U.S. President Bill Clinton paid homage to the Jordanian monarch at Thursday`s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, speaking in Frankfurt on Friday, said the entire Arab world hoped for his recovery. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israelis were praying for "a great leader and a great friend, a great champion of peace". The king`s return on Friday provides an eerie echo of his triumphant arrival on January 19 after lengthy treatments in the United States. Then, declaring himself cured of cancer, he toured Amman in an open-topped car, braving winter wind and rain to receive a rapturous welcome. Days after his return last month, the king dismissed his heir of 34 years, his younger brother Prince Hassan, replacing him with Abdullah. A day later, looking
frail and leaning on a walking stick, he was rushed back to the United States. Officials said the king flew back to Jordan in his private jet. He was accompanied by his wife Queen Noor, their two sons Hamza and Hashem, two daughters Iman and Raya, and his daughter Haya by an earlier marriage.
