What goes around, sometimes comes around.
The Saudis deserve whatever they get.
Posted on 12/07/2003 12:52:10 AM PST by Bobby777
Al-Qaida has launched a campaign designed to undermine the security and finances of the Saudi royal family.
Western intelligence sources said the latest al-Qaida attacks indicate a campaign is underway to isolate the Saudi royal family and threaten its financial base. The campaign is based on intimidating leading Arab and Western advisers from remaining in the kingdom.
The Nov. 9 attack on the Muhaya compound appeared to signal a shift in al-Qaida strategy. Until then, the sources said, al-Qaida targeted Western nationals in the kingdom who were not considered crucial to the regime's survival.
But in the Muhaya suicide car bombing, the target was a compound that housed Lebanese financial advisers to the royal family.
The sources said the Muhaya compound included bankers and smugglers who facilitated earnings of billions of dollars in undeclared revenue.
"The royal family is in a panic and now believes al-Qaida is playing for keeps," a senior Western intelligence source said. "Without its financial advisers, the family is completely exposed."
Al-Qaida has sown panic throughout the kingdom's security forces by demonstrating it can penetrate military and other facilities with ease. British and U.S. advisers have been of little use, the sources said, because the Saudi royal family does not want to disclose information that would demonstrate the extent of al-Qaida's influence in the country.
On Nov. 22, a fire was reported in the Riyad Armed Forces hospital. The fire destroyed several rooms and caused security forces to be placed on alert throughout the region. Several foreign nurses were injured.
"This is a deliberate campaign that seeks to increase the pressure on the royal family by telling them they aren't safe anywhere, even within their own military," another Western intelligence analyst said. "This has sparked a debate over how to reconcile with al-Qaida and end this war."
On Dec. 1, Saudi Arabia provided the first official details of the Nov. 9 bombing at the Muhaya compound. Al-Qaida had smuggled in explosives from Yemen to Saudi Arabia. In late November, Saudi authorities found an additional 1.2 tons of explosives believed to have been smuggled in from Yemen.
An interior ministry statement said that in the Nov. 9 attack, al-Qaida insurgents approached the Muhaya compound while firing rifles and hurling grenades toward the gate. While the firefight was taking place, a jeep painted with the insignia of security forces and packed with 300 kilograms explosives drove into the compound.
"Then it was blown up in a suicide operation," the statement said. "Investigators have found out who is behind this operation and measures are still being taken. Security forces are still chasing the perpetrators and, God willing, they will be found and brought to justice."
In Sanaa, meanwhile, Yemeni security forces arrested a senior al-Qaida leader, Mohammed Hamdi Al Ahdal, suspected of masterminding the suicide bombing of the USS Cole.
In 1999 Al Ahdal was arrested in Saudi Arabia and spent 14 months in prison for his ties to Saudi billionaire bomber Osama bin Laden. He was then deported to Yemen.
"Kinda hard to prop up this scandelous regeim with no troops."
When this goes south, the US Calvary will arrive.
Good, let the Saudi royals eat some of the sh!tburgers they've cooked up for us.
Nope, I think we'll let the Indians do our "wet" work. They are itching to kick Paki- a$$.
What goes around, sometimes comes around.
The Saudis deserve whatever they get.
It's getting longer and longer odds against our reestablishing containment, and keeping nuclear weapons away from Al-Q'aeda.
I keep remembering a translation of Nostradamus I once saw, back when he was momentarily the rage, during the Gulf War, about his third great tyrant, the one who would succeed Napoleon and the Second Great Tyrant. It was Josef Goebbels's wife, IIRC, who pointed out a quatrain in Nostradamus about the Second Great Tyrant, and named him: "Hister". So very close.......
But the Third Great Tyrant he called "the man in the blue turban", and it seemed that he attacked many countries. Reading Nostradamus is like reading mud, so that anyone who wants to can have a go -- all he needs is a PhD equivalent in French, and especially in Middle French, and he is ready to begin translating. More or less.
Well, Nostradamus and a dollar will get you a decent cup of coffee, but I can't help but wonder if the old guy didn't see something. Especially after Frau Goebbels's call.
I think it's pretty long odds against us and the President's effort to keep one or more of our big cities from getting nailed with a nuclear or biological weapon.
I hope the President succeeds and we win. But the odds don't look that hot right now.
If OBL wins, there will be consequences for many countries besides Saudi. He is an Islamofascist fanatic and a dreamer, and he wants the map back the way it was 1100 years ago, when Spain was mostly Moorish (al-Andalus, they called it -- OBL goes on about the "loss" of Spain as if it were last year), and the caliphates were vigorous from the Atlantic Ocean to India.
If he wins control of the shrines of Islam, he'll go after Israel and the West next, and I would expect him to use oil, WMD and terrorism. Everything, in other words, in order to inflict a decisive strategic and moral defeat on the West and destroy the prestige of European civilization.
That's what really fries his grits -- the association with European civilization of the prestige of leadership in so many of the arts and sciences, in engineering, and so on. He can't stand that -- it's like blasphemy.
What goes around, sometimes comes around.
The Saudis deserve whatever they get.
I agree..............IMO Saudi money has made millionaires and friends in Washington for decades. Surely, Washington insiders knew of the funding of madrases to preach radical islam (and the killing of innocent civilians) long before it became public knowledge. Also, why did Kissinger et al. refuse to lead an investigation of Saudi activities which was proposed about a year ago?
Within the last couple of months I saw an article that indicated the Bin Laden family had won a contract to manage some of the Saudi national airports.
The Saudis are no friends of ours, and never have been, though they like our toys. Certainly Al-queda is no friend.
Long past time for the State Department to implement the policies of Ronald the Great.Encourage your enemies to destroy one another.
Of course there are long odds against us. That is where deterrence comes in. I am quite sure that we have told the Arab League states in private that it is in their interest to kill Al Qaeda. If they fail, we will kill them. In a day. It was Steven den Beste who pointed out that this war will end in one of two ways; with America triumphant and the Arab world making progress towards representative government, or with American triumphant and the Arab world obliterated by a retaliatory barrage of thermonuclear warheads.
The Arabs know this. It is why they are afraid.
Oh, and AQ? Trust me on this. The Saudis will negotiate with the Israelis to clean up this little matter.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
I just suggest that you be careful for what you wish for. Consider the results if the Islamists win and take control of Saudi Arabia?
That's the "alternateve B" end game to this dance, the only question is whether it happens in one year or twenty. Personally, I'd take my chances on a Saudi civil war, resulting in the deaths of 100s of 1000s of pro-jihadists. Similar in scale to what happened to the communists in Indonesia a generation ago.
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