AL-QAEDA AND THE HOUSE OF SAUD - Page 2

Eternal enemies or secret bedfellows?

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On the basis of such evidence, Obeid, who replaced as education minister the secular, progressive-minded Muhammad al-Rasheed, a man hated by the hardline Wahhabis, [17] is not an individual the West should trust to delete anti-Semitic and anti-Christian passages from the Saudi school curriculum, let alone its pro-jihadi rhetoric, all widely blamed as providing ideological justification for attacks on non-Muslims by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.

Nor, for that matter, is there much cause for confidence in the Saudi chief justice, Saleh bin Muhammad al-Luhaidan, who also holds the rank of government minister. Luhaidan has been accused of instructing Saudis on how to fight US and Iraqi troops in Iraq in the name of Allah. An October 2004 recording obtained and distributed by a Washington-based Saudi dissident group has Luhaideen making remarks at a mosque in Riyadh in response to questions from a group of Saudis who wanted to join terrorist organizations in Iraq. [18] He is heard advising that those who still want to join the fight must be careful when entering the country because US planes and satellite surveillance equipment may be monitoring the borders. He adds that those Saudis who do manage to enter Iraq will not be punished by the Saudi security forces and insists that money raised for the jihad must go directly to those who will launch attacks.

Two of the kingdom's most extremist, anti-Western clerics, Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Auda, known as "awakening sheikhs" because of their powerful influence on young Arab Muslims in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War when they were imprisoned by the al-Saud, have also returned to the mainstream, even acting as intermediaries between the government and suspected terrorists. [19]

Hawali, who reportedly recently suffered a heart attack, is secretary general of the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign, a militant, anti-American entity established by more than 225 radical figures from across the Islamic world as a response to the US invasion of Iraq. The group's initial statement condemned "the Zionists and the American administration led by right-wing extremists that are working to expand their control over nations and peoples, loot their resources, destroy their will, and to change their educational curricula and social system". [20] In November 2004, Hawali and Auda were among 26 Saudi clerics, most of whom receive their salaries from the Saudi royal family, who published a religious statement urging Muslims to wage holy war in Iraq.

"Jihad against the occupiers is a must," said the statement. "It is not only a legitimate right, but a religious duty." [21] The fact that both of these men remain in their jobs speaks volumes. The al-Saud's secret strategy is to put out the message that it is okay to attack "infidels" in Iraq, but not in Saudi Arabia. Critics of the regime refer to this when they point out alleged "Saudi duplicity". According to a recent study, some 60% of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals, [22] and even a Saudi-based analyst concedes that as many as 2,500 Saudis have crossed over to Iraq to join the insurgency. [23] Saudi observer and Gulf expert Simon Henderson has written in a more general context:
Worried about their own necks, the Saudi royal family tolerates a political fudge, hoping that it can reduce support for al-Qaeda from among its citizens and win the battle for Islamic legitimacy. Al-Qaeda recognizes the basic rules, targeting foreigners. Hence, no direct attacks on members of the House of Saud itself ... Before 9/11, Western officials say that senior princes were paying off bin Laden to avoid targeting the kingdom altogether. That changed when Western pressure stopped the payments. For the West, this means more terrorism and high oil prices. [24]
The new strategy of tacitly encouraging Saudi terrorists to blow themselves up in Iraq or at least not disciplining those who openly encourage such action is a continuation of this game. It represents yet another attempt by the al-Saud to postpone a final showdown with bin Laden and his followers. The al-Saud have certainly done little, if anything, to stop young Saudis from traveling to Iraq. The failure of the regime to challenge more rigorously the jihadi culture in its schools and mosques, beyond the confines of glossy advertising campaigns, as the remarks by the education minister and chief justice clearly demonstrate, compound the long-term risk of blowback from such appeasement. [25]

The al-Saud regime further muddies the water with its campaigns of outright misinformation. The hunt for Paul Johnson's corpse is a good example of this. Only hours after his murder, Saudi security forces gunned down a man believed to be al-Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, in an ambush at a petrol station in the capital. He and several followers were caught, the Saudi authorities said, attempting to dispose of Johnson's corpse.

Yet, the next day it became known that Johnson's corpse had not been found. Still today, it has yet to be located, and the US Embassy in Riyadh has called off the search. In fact, despite the attempts to link Muqrin to the abduction and although Muqrin had a long and bloody history from fighting in Chechnya to apparently planning the May 2003 attacks, this was probably the one atrocity of which he was innocent.

Saudi spokesmen had mournfully repeated in Riyadh and Washington that the authorities had launched a massive manhunt for Johnson that had narrowly missed saving him but had at least brought rough justice to his abductors shortly after the deed. But this story turned out to be another example of rhetoric replacing reality. Instead, the indications are that Muqrin was lured into a trap independent of and planned well ahead of the Johnson case and that it was another terrorist leader, Saleh al-Oufi, later named as Muqrin's successor, who had carried out the abduction. When Johnson's head was recovered a month later, it was in the freezer of a safe house used by Oufi. [26]

Dangerous liaisons
Al-Qaeda's infiltration of the Saudi security forces, the widespread sympathy in those forces' rank and file for the terrorist organization's goals, and the intelligence leaks that result have had multiple negative consequences, the most profound being the assassination of senior officers and the collaboration between lower ranks of the security forces and terrorists during attacks.

Members of the state security apparatus, whose job now ostensibly amounts to keeping the al-Saud in power in the face of growing domestic opposition, find themselves directly in the radicals' firing line. A radical Saudi Islamist group affiliated with al-Qaeda claimed they blew up a car in December 2003 in Riyadh belonging to Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim al-Dhaleh, a senior Saudi security officer who escaped by the skin of his teeth.

The group, the Brigade of the Two Holy Mosques, also said it had tried to kill Major General Abdel-Aziz al-Huweirini, the number three official in the Saudi Interior Ministry, who was shot in Riyadh the same month. The statement warned Dhaleh "and those like him" against pursuing their war against Islamists in Saudi Arabia. [27]

These were not empty threats. In April 2004, a suicide attacker driving a truck blew up the headquarters of the counterterrorism unit in Riyadh, destroying much of the building and killing five people. In December of the same year, militants attacked the Interior Ministry in Riyadh itself, although damage was minimal and claims that Prince Naif was the target were viewed skeptically because he was on an official trip to Tunisia at the time of the blast. Also, in June, Mubarak al-Sowat, head of the police investigations department in Mecca and a leading proponent of launching preemptive strikes against suspected extremists, was shot nine times outside of his home and then hacked to pieces with an axe. [28]

Giving a rare insight into the paranoia and fear with which senior security officials now have to live in Saudi Arabia, Sowat's wife told local media that her husband had received many death threats on his cell phone and by e-mail in the weeks and months leading up to his assassination and was "always distracted and nervous". He had become "constantly anxious and fearful" after he returned from Riyadh earlier in the year. [29]

Obviously, those singling out such individuals for attack must have excellent intelligence, likely provided by insiders. They know who to target, as well as their victims' exact movements and when best to strike. There is also ample evidence of collaboration between the terrorists and security forces in the execution of terrorist attacks or, at the very least, of an unwillingness to respond swiftly on some occasions.

In the attacks on the compounds in Yanbu and Khobar in May 2004, at least 90 minutes passed before security forces responded. In Khobar, the attackers were actually allowed to go free to fight another day when security forces turned a blind eye, despite the fact that the compound in which they were holed up had been completely surrounded. [30]

The attacks in Riyadh in May 2003 depended on a significant level of insider information about the three compounds targeted, almost certainly provided by those "defending" them. The suicide bombers detonated their vehicle right inside the main housing block in the Vinell compound, which took them less than a minute to reach from the gate. As they drove at breakneck speed with a bomb weighing nearly 200 kilograms to the most densely populated part of the complex, they had to know where the switches were to operate the gates after attacking the guards and exactly where the main housing block was located. [31]

The final showdown?
In his December 2004 address to the Saudi ruling family, bin Laden issued an unprecedented call for attacks that would sabotage the oil industries of the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. [32] Al-Qaeda elements in Saudi Arabia immediately endorsed attacks on their own oil industry. "We call on all the [mujahideen] in the Arabian Peninsula to unite ... and target the oil supplies that do not serve the Islamic nation, but the enemies of this nation," said an Internet statement. [33]

Bin Laden's new tack is a shift in al-Qaeda tactics, reversing his and others' edicts from the 1990s that made oil facilities in the Muslim world off-limits to attack. Because the hoped-for Islamic empire that he and others had announced in Sudan in 1993 would need oil revenues to thrive, the oil facilities had to be preserved for the glory of Islam. [34] In Saudi Arabia, these pipelines have become the obvious new targets for the Saudi jihadis. They could be sabotaged by an amateur with no military training, and a successful attack would have a huge psychological impact.

Government officials in Riyadh dismiss talk of attacks on the oil pipelines as a scare tactic, arguing that, because Saudi security forces have killed or arrested dozens of al-Qaeda operatives, bin Laden's ability to influence events inside the kingdom has diminished. That may be true, and there is no denying the Saudi government's multiple counterterrorism successes. Yet, although attacks on the heavily guarded oil-pumping facilities are indeed unlikely, smaller incidents remain possible along the kingdom's more than 10,000-mile pipeline network.

In his message to Saudi militants, bin Laden's main aim did not appear to be the destruction of major installations, which would rob the Saudi people of their primary means of financial income and turn them completely against him and his cause, but rather acts of sabotage that would increase oil prices, which he said should be $100 a barrel. Saudi Arabia has more than a quarter of the world's known oil reserves, and even an abortive attack on the Saudi petroleum network would raise oil prices. It also would dramatically increase concerns in Washington about the al-Saud family's ability to maintain stability.

Adding to concerns about the impact of bin Laden's tape is the knowledge that the thousands of Saudi jihadis who have snuck over to Iraq are likely to return to the kingdom once Iraq stabilizes. They will have been trained in urban warfare, including instruction on how to sabotage oil pipelines. As was the case after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, these Saudis are going to bring their terrorism back home with them. A confidential Interior Ministry document obtained by a London-based Saudi dissident group apparently acknowledges that 200 Saudis may have already returned to the kingdom in the wake of bin Laden's call. [35] What happens next will largely determine al-Qaeda's future in Saudi Arabia. "We expect the worst from those who went to Iraq," Prince Naif said in remarks published in July. "They will be worse [than those who have already launched attacks], and we will be ready for them." [36]

There are troubling signs; the tactics employed by the Iraqi insurgents are evident in the attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia. Copycat incidents include the dragging of Westerners' bodies from the back of cars, the use of assassinations to sabotage the vital oil sector, and kidnappings. The ideological bonds that bind the insurgents in Iraq and Saudi Arabia were made explicit by those who beheaded Johnson in Riyadh when they signed their claim of responsibility "the Fallujah Brigade". [37] In an attack in which six Westerners and a Saudi were killed in Yanbu, militants dragged the body of one of the victims into a local school playground and forced students to watch. "Come join your brothers in Fallujah," they shouted, in reference to the city where four US contractors had been similarly slain. [38] The al-Qaeda cell that attacked foreigners in Khobar also dragged the body of a Westerner through the streets from a car. The leader of the group said on an Islamic website afterward that a subsidiary of Halliburton had been singled out for attack because "it has a role in Iraq". [39]

The flow of Saudi jihadis to Iraq benefits the al-Saud regime in the short term, at least in the sense that, if they are blowing themselves up in Baghdad, they will not be doing so in Riyadh. Yet, there is potential for long-term blowback, just as there was when the "Afghan Arabs" returned from Afghanistan in the 1990s. The other main, related problem is that the al-Saud is increasingly following a domestic agenda focused solely on counterterrorism.

Riyadh's relentless fight against militants and repeated calls for national unity have conveniently provided a facade behind which the monarchy can abandon the few reform initiatives previously in place and reverse any movement, at least in the short term, toward democratic change. By remaining complicit with the regime, particularly at a time when Saudi citizens remain oppressed, unemployed and in some cases even impoverished, Washington is essentially allowing the kingdom to become a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.

The United States is dependent on Saudi oil, but the Saudi regime is dependent on the US for its survival. Current US policy toward the kingdom should use that leverage to call for genuine reform, rather than just supporting the royal family in the belief that it will keep terrorists at bay. If the US does not look beyond the short-term benefits of stability resulting from its relationship with the Saudi regime, it will face far more severe, long-term consequences.

Notes
[1] Mohammed Rasooldeen US Says Saudi Victory Crucial to Defeating Global Terror, Arab News, February 8, 2005.
[2] See, for example, Simon Henderson, Lights, Camera, Inaction? Saudi Arabia's Counterterrorism Conference, PolicyWatch, no. 956, February 11, 2005.
[3] "US Calls Saudis 'Significant Source' of Terror Funding," Agence France Press, July 14, 2005.
[4] Robert Spencer, Ending the Saudi Double Game, FrontpageMagazine.com, June 23, 2005.
[5] Nick Fielding, Saudis Paid Bin Laden 200 Million Pounds, Sunday Times, August 25, 2002.
[6] "Saudis Offer Amnesty to Militants," Associated Press, June 23, 2004.
[7] "Saudi Attacks Blamed on al-Qaeda," Associated Press, November 9, 2003.
[8] "Retraining for 1,000 Saudi Preachers," Reuters, June 25, 2003.
[9] Douglas Frantz, "Once Indifferent, Saudis Allied With US in Fighting al-Qaeda," Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2004.
[10] Dominic Evans, "Saudi Arabia Says Ready to Beat Militants from Iraq," Reuters, July 10, 2005.
[11] John R Bradley, "Smoldering Rebellion Against Saudi Rule Threatens to Set Country Ablaze," Independent, January 28, 2004.
[12] Abdullah al-Shihri, "Saudis Kill Top Militant in Gun Battle in Capital," Associated Press, July 4, 2005.
[13] John R Bradley, The House of Saud Re-Embraces Fundamentalism, Asia Times Online, April 12, 2005.
[14] Bin Laden makes this accusation, at some length, in both his August 1995 and December 2004 addresses to the Saudi royal family.
[15] Glenn Simpson, "New Saudi Aide Is in Terror-Fund Probe," Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2005.
[16] For more details about al-Obeid's appointment, see Henderson, "Lights, Camera, Inaction?"
[17] "Saudi Islamic Doctrine Hard to Control," Associated Press, April 20, 2004.
[18] See "Saudi Minister Supports War Against Iraq: Report," Saudi Institute, April 26, 2005. Al-Luhaidan admitted to NBC News that the voice on the recording was his and that they were his words but claimed, rather unconvincingly, that he had not intended to express those opinions. See Lisa Myers and the NBC Investigative Unit, "More Evidence of Saudi Double Talk?" April 26, 2005, . Since he was exposed, however, al-Luhaidan has made a clear statement calling for Saudis not to enter Iraq. See "Saudi Official Warns Youths Against Fighting in Iraq," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, July 6, 2005.
[19] Erick Stakelbeck, "The Saudi Hate Machine," National Interest 2, no. 49 (December 2003).
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Stephen Schwartz, "The Foreign Face of Iraqi Terrorism," Weekly Standard, March 8, 2005.
[23 Mahen Abedin, "Al-Qaeda: In Decline or Preparing for the Next Attack? An Interview with Dr Saad al-Faqih," Jamestown Foundation 3, no. 5 (June 15, 2005), (hereinafter Jamestown interview).
[24] Simon Henderson, "Bin Laden Increases His Challenge to the House of Saud," London Times, May 31, 2004.
[25] John R Bradley, "Saudis Jihadis Aping Iraq Rebels," Washington Times, June 23, 2004.
[26] Michael Scott Doran, "Two Deaths and a Dissembling in Riyadh," Daily Star, August 27, 2004.
[27] Faiza Saleh Ambah, "Saudi Bomb: A Shift in al-Qaeda Tactics," Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 2004.
[28] "Mecca: One Security Officer Assassinated," Arabic News, June 20, 2005.
[29] "Slain Saudi Policeman Was Under Threat," United Press International, June 20, 2005.
[30] "Saudi Security Forces 'Agreed to Let Al-Qaeda Killers Escape'," London Telegraph, June 1, 2004.
[31] Robin Gedye and John R Bradley, "Bomber Moles in Saudi Security Forces," London Telegraph, May 16, 2003.
[32] John R Bradley, "Terror Comes to Saudis," Washington Times, January 19, 2004.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Amir Taheri, "What 'Fueled' the Saudi Raid," New York Post, December 6, 2004.
[35] Jamestown interview.
[36] Evans, "Saudi Arabia Says Ready to Beat Militants from Iraq."
[37] Bradley, "Saudi Jihadis Aping Iraq Rebels."
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.

(Copyright 2005 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (reprinted with permission of the author from The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2005, issue 28:4, pp 139-152.)