TURNING THE FURY INWARDS FILES:

Will al-Qaeda bring the royal house down?: The Riyadh attack, believed to be the work of bin Laden’s supporters, was a challenge to the ruling House of Saud, finds Trevor Royle. Now they must decide whether to appease or confront the critics (Sunday Herald, 11/16/03)

Despite a tightening of security and a crackdown by police on suspected terrorist groups, the country is bracing itself for further attacks in the wake of the Muhaya bombing. At first, most Saudis did not want to believe the bombing was the work of fellow Muslims, especially during Ramadan, and conspiracy theorists were not slow to point the finger at Mossad [the Israeli secret service] or the CIA. Apart from a visceral hatred of the US and Israel the main impetus for the rumour came from the fact that the victims were Muslims and it was unthinkable Islamic terrorists would slaughter their co-religionists.

While it would have been a neat solution to blame non-Muslim or Western-backed groups, according to the Saudi internal security forces, there is enough evidence to prove that the attack was the work of Arab terrorists with links to al-Qaeda. The claim was given substance by US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who was in Riyadh in advance of the re-opening of the US embassy: “It is quite clear to me that al-Qaeda wants to take down the royal family and the government of Saudi Arabia.”

Certainly, Osama bin Laden has never made any secret of his dislike of the Saudi regime or his desire to see it removed from power. He has criticised its links with the US, but until last week the main targets of terrorists in Saudi were workers from the West. In the past 10 years there have been attacks on US military bases and foreign workers’ compounds, but last week’s switch in targets prompted fears that bin Laden might be intent on making a push to destabilise a Saudi administration which is not universally popular.

It's hard to see any downside for the West in an Islamic Civil War.

MORE:
Bringing Jihad Home (Jim Hoagland, November 16, 2003, Washington Post)

The blood that the bombers of al Qaeda shed in the Saudi capital of Riyadh belonged primarily to Lebanese, Egyptian and other Arab families observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. They were victims of a well-planned mass murder that has brought al Qaeda's war home, where it will be won or lost.

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq led by the United States have put a misleading veneer on the overlapping political and civil wars that have roiled the Persian Gulf region for three decades. These conflicts swirl within Islam and within individual nations of the greater Middle East, which must finally come to terms with the direct dangers posed by al Qaeda and its loose network of nihilistic terrorists. [...]

However linked or unlinked they are, the killers in Iraq and Saudi Arabia -- and in Turkey yesterday and in other Islamic countries that are probably next in line for the expanding attacks -- clearly see Ramadan as an important psychological moment to intensify operations. They are throwing all they have into spreading insurgency and shaking the resolve of those who stand in the way of their taking control of Islam and of the region's politics.

-Al-Qaida’s Saudi War (Walid Phares, November 10, 2003, FrontPage)

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2003 10:15 AM