All-out war between Al Qaeda and house of Saud under way

Christian Science Monitor ^ | June 03, 2004 | Dan Murphy

[Flavius]

All-out war between Al Qaeda and house of Saud under way

Wednesday, Saudi officials changed the country's charity system, which had helped groups fund terrorism.

By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

CAIRO – The killing of 22 people in the key oil center of Khobar, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend not only helped push oil prices above $42 a barrel - a 20-year high - but deepened the impression that the country is dealing with a terrorist crisis. With three attackers escaping after being pinned down by Saudi forces - apparently disguised in military uniforms - there are questions about the country's ability to swiftly tackle the problem. Continued instability in the world's largest oil producer could have serious consequences for the global economy and for the monarchy that Al Qaeda has vowed to destroy.

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Saudi Arabia has recognized the extent of the challenge and has stepped up its campaign against domestic militants over the past year. But M.J. Gohel, a political scientist in London, says there are factions standing in the way of a tougher crackdown, pointing to five other escapes by attackers during firefights in the past year. "My suggestion is that this is organized ineptness,'' says Mr. Gohel. "How is it that Saudi security, which protects the house of Saud and the princes and princesses so well, can't afford the same protection to well-known areas housing foreign workers?"

Saudi officials deny there's any infiltration of their security forces and say the extent of the problem inside the country is being exaggerated. Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence and now ambassador to London, told the BBC on Monday that all but one of six Al Qaeda cells inside the country have been destroyed, and that there are no signs that the group is winning fresh recruits.

For the US-led "war on terror," events in Saudi Arabia show how tricky the task of counterterrorism has become. While the US State Department's 2003 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, released in April, found that international terrorism - defined as incidents in which the members of more than one country are involved - was at a 34-year low, most of the gains were made in Latin America and in Africa.

The report found a 28 percent increase in attacks in the Middle East over 2002 - almost all of them tied to Al Qaeda or militants with similar ideals. Since the US invasion of Iraq last year, there have been six major terrorist attacks in the Middle East, inspired by or linked to Al Qaeda, killing 85, compared to three in the region during 2002.

There is a small silver lining. Analysts like Mustafa Alani, a Middle East security analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, say that the attacks inside Saudi Arabia have turned a broad swath of Saudi public opinion against Al Qaeda, creating the conditions for the kingdom to pursue an "open war" against the group. Until the past year, the kingdom was afraid of inflaming popular sentiment with an all-out campaign, but Al Qaeda operations have given the government a freer hand. It began with the May 12, 2003, suicide attacks on three housing compounds for foreigners in the capital, Riyadh, which killed 36 people, most of them Saudis.

"[Osama] bin Laden can't claim that he's only killing Westerners or foreigners anymore,'' says Mr. Alani. "The May attack ... really changed the perception of the population and that allowed the government to become fully committed in pursuing them."

Part of the problem for Saudi officials in the past has been concern that going after the group would look as if it were being done at the behest of the US, which could present Al Qaeda with a propaganda coup. But now the kingdom feels the risks to its own survival, and with changing public sentiment, a tougher stance is possible.

In addition to the string of arrests and firefights that have seen 300 alleged militants arrested and 25 killed in Saudi Arabia since last year - including two Wednesday that the government says were linked to the Khobar attack - the US and Saudi Arabia have begun to work more closely together. Wednesday, Saudi officials said that the government would now centralize its charity system to give the government more control over where funds are going.

But it's unlikely that the government's campaign will yield fast results, particularly since operatives inspired by Al Qaeda have become adept at working on their own. The extent to which Al Qaeda and its affiliates have decoupled their fortunes from individual leaders was underscored by the latest attack in Khobar. Saudi officials say the key organizer was Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the leader of Al Qaeda inside Saudi Arabia.

He's the third head of Al Qaeda's main Saudi affiliate in the past year. The group's chief ideologue, the Afghan veteran Yusuf al-Ayiri, was killed in a shootout in May 2003, and Mr. Ayiri's replacement, Khalid Haj, was killed in the aftermath of the May 1, 2004, attack on the offices of a Houston-based oil company, which killed six Westerners and one Saudi. Both Ayiri and Mr. Haj are said to have trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and Saudi officials say that many more such Afghan veterans are now inside the country. While the killing of leaders can be considered successes, they've scarcely slowed the rising pace of attacks.

"What we're talking about is an Al Qaeda so flexible, [Saudi forces] may kill al-Muqrin soon, but what will the impact be?'' says Alani. The government released a list of 26 alleged terrorist leaders last December; 18 remain at large.

[Flavius]

25M people controlled by 20k family...

Bin Laden, picture is virtually in every families home back there (report from Independent, which we cant post here)...

So, start TO DIG or change energy sources, already...

The L dude said that he is going after supply lines and he surely is..

[sakic]

Now here's a war where I can root hard for both sides to lose.

[LibKill]

House of Saud deserves everything they get. They've been in beed with extremists and terrorists for decades.

[bobjam]

...and they say this is a war over oil.

[Your Nightmare]

You reap what you sow.

[guitfiddlist]

Part of the problem for Saudi officials in the past has been concern that going after the group would look as if it were being done at the behest of the US, which could present Al Qaeda with a propaganda coup. But now the kingdom feels the risks to its own survival, and with changing public sentiment, a tougher stance is possible.

Gee, it's really great to have "friends" like these during times of war. Almost makes a westerner want to supply both sides, like the Saudis have for years. A pox on the House of Saud, which rules like some twisted group of fascists straight out of "Dune".

[rrrod]

"Now here's a war where I can root hard for both sides to lose." a win win situation kinda! almost like watching france and germany fight it out!

[datura]

Al Qaida describes cell strategy to topple Saudis,
undermine Western economy

ABU DHABI - For the first time, Al Qaida has outlined its strategy to wage an urban warfare campaign against Saudi Arabia which it views as an extension of U.S. interests.

Al Qaida's operational chief for the Persian Gulf, Abdul Aziz Al Muqrin, relayed the movement's strategy to undermine the Saudi royal family and with it the Western economy. A statement purportedly from Al Muqrin, appointed to the post in January 2004, asserted that Al Qaida would operate in small groups to attack Western interests and security forces in the Saudi kingdom.

Saudis gather as police forces surround a mosque to search for suspects on May, 31, in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

---

"Working in cities needs small groups comprising no more than four people," Al Muqrin said in statement posted on several Arabic-language websites.

"The activists must be residents of this city to avoid spies and suspicious eyes."

Al Muqrin, who succeeded the late Khaled Al Haj, discussed the recruitment and planning of Saudi attacks. He suggested that the Al Qaida network in the kingdom was highly compartmentalized in wake of reversals sustained by the movement in 2003.

"Most groups waging holy war have made the mistake of telling everyone everything about our operations," Al Muqrin said. "Only the group leader should know what is going on but everyone else should only be told about their role. For example, those who will conduct explosions should only be told about the explosion."

Al Muqrin has raised his profile over the last month amid a series of Al Qaida attacks against Western targets and security installations. In May, Al Qaida claimed responsibility for the killing of about 20 Westerners, most of them connected to Saudi Arabia's oil industry.

Experts on Al Qaida said defeating Saudi Arabia has become a major goal in the organization's war against the United States. Al Qaida views the Saudi royal family as an extension of U.S. interests in the Gulf region.

"For them, the control of Saudi territory is important for achieving success against the U.S. for two reasons," said B. Raman, a former Indian cabinet secretary and leading analyst. "Firstly, Saudi Arabia could act as a rear base for the anti-U.S. jihad in Iraq just as Pakistan had served as a rear base for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Secondly, they can use Saudi oil as a jihadi weapon in their attempts to bring about the collapse of the Western economy."

Raman, director of the South Asia Analysis Group, said Al Qaida has been supported in its campaign against the kingdom by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, the most lethal insurgent in Iraq. Raman said Al Zarqawi has been exercising command and control in anti-Saudi operations.

[Bahbah]

"Prince Turki al-Faisal,...told the BBC on Monday that all but one of six Al Qaeda cells inside the country have been destroyed, and that there are no signs that the group is winning fresh recruits."

The Prince is either lying or is delusional. Maybe both.

[Savage Beast]

Somebody should have explained, long ago, to the Saudis that all pacts with the devil end the same way.

[wayoverontheright]

The report found a 28 percent increase in attacks in the Middle East over 2002 - almost all of them tied to Al Qaeda or militants with similar ideals.

And no attacks on American soil.

What does this say?

It is apparent they retain their CAPABILITY to strike us here, could it be that our actions have caused them to fear consequences?

No, that couldn't possibly be, because then Bush's STRATEGY will have to be acknowledged as EFFECTIVE at making us safer.

</ sarcasm >

[Malsua]

Is there nothing better than a picture of a Crown Vic(or is it a Caprice) in front of a Mickey Dees coupled with an article about Anti-western insurgents?

LOL.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Thomas Friedman: Bin Laden in Every Saudi Home

Repeated terrorist attacks by homegrown al-Qaida operatives on Saudi Arabian oil interests show that a civil war is raging inside the key strategic U.S. ally, the New York Times' Thomas Friedman argued on Sunday.

"You could do a revisionist history of 9/11 that basically describes this as a [Saudi] civil war," Friedman said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "There's a real problem inside Saudi Arabia."

Friedman said that after the 9/11 attacks, while Saudi leaders publicly expressed their regrets, Saudi citizens privately sympathized with Osama bin Laden.

"Right after 9/11, you know, I was in neighboring United Arab Emirates," he recalled. "An Emirates official said to me - he'd just come from a conference in Saudi Arabia - he said, 'Tom, let me tell you something. Bin Laden is in every home in Saudi Arabia.'"

The Times columnist argued that bin Laden struck the U.S. primarily as "a way of undercutting what he saw as the strongest prop of the Saudi ruling family."

He urged President Bush to use the Saudi turmoil to recruit European nations to join the U.S. in helping to stabilize Iraq - telling them:

"'Guys, we've now got a Saudi Arabia that's got a low-grade civil war going on. We have Saudi opposition groups, al-Qaida sympathizers, attacking fortified oil installations. We need to put Iraq - tilt that on the right direction. The last thing we need is two unstable countries there."

[Flavius]

Crown Vic