WHEN YOU STARE INTO THE ABBASSID...:

Saudis forced to look inwards (Syed Saleem Shahzad, 11/13/03, Asia Times)

The latest terror attack in Saudi Arabia - there was one in May this year, also in a housing compound - follows a recent sweep in Dharan and other eastern provinces in which Saudi security forces captured a large cache of arms and ammunition. A number of militants were arrested, all of them Shi'ites suspected of links with underground Saudi militant movements campaigning against the monarchy, including the little-known al-Iqwan and Saudi Hezbollah. Shi'ites are thought to be a majority in the east, where, as it happens, most of the country's oil lies.

The weapons cache was so big that the Saudi establishment now believes that there are strong supply lines behind the militants that pay and arm them in their isolated desert hubs.

Shi'ites have long complained of discrimination in Saudi Arabia, which is now particularly nervous about the resurgence of the Shi'ite majority in neighboring Iraq following the United States-led invasion that toppled Sunni president Saddam Hussein. Most Saudis belong to the austere Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam. [...]

Certainly, Saudi Arabia's rulers have their internal problems. As US allies, they publicly declared their support for the Bush administration's "war on terror" and enthusiastically embarked on a roundup of suspects. However, a number of their targets were Shi'ite dissidents who had nothing to do with any global campaigns, rather they were involved in an internal power struggle against the royal establishment.

The Shi'ite/Sunni divide is one of the main contradictions we are forcing in the Middle East.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 12, 2003 8:06 AM