Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years before he was overthrown in a popular uprising, has died at 91, according to state media.

Mubarak was a strongman president who led the Arab world’s most populous country with an iron fist. He was deposed in 2011 and was the second Arab dictator to fall in a wave of popular protests known as the Arab Spring.

He was in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Cairo when he died.

The ex-president went into surgery on January 23, according to his son Alaa Mubarak on Twitter.

During his 29 years in power, Hosni Mubarak survived would-be assassins and ill health, crushed a rising Islamist radical movement and maintained the peace pact with neighbouring Israel that got his predecessor killed.

Mubarak was in the intensive care unit at a military hospital in Cairo when he died. He was in surgery on January 23, according to a tweet by his son Alaa Mubarak.

The Soviet-trained bomber pilot became one of the leading US allies in the Middle East, receiving tens of billions of dollars in American military aid, and his government's continued observance of the Camp David accords with Israel was the cornerstone of the so-called “cold peace” between the formerly warring neighbours.

But following a January 2011 revolt in Tunisia that launched the Arab Spring uprisings, demonstrators on the streets of Cairo stood up to riot police, and the army refused to intercede on his behalf. Mubarak handed over power to a military council in February and went into seclusion in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.