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The Suicide Bombing Attacks in Saudi Arabia: A Preliminary Assessment

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Dore Gold - Historically, al-Qaeda grew from Saudi roots. Its founder, Osama bin Laden, used Saudi charities as one of the primary conduits for its initial funding. A captured document from the Saudi-run International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), dated in 1989 and possessed by Bosnian Intelligence, documents how this funding route was established during meetings between IIRO and representatives of bin Laden. The IIRO office in the Philippines was run by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law from 1986 to 1994 and funneled funds to the Abu Sayyaf organization; while the brother of bin Laden's deputy, al-Zawahiri, worked for IIRO in Albania. Parts of Saudi Arabia, particularly the mountainous southwestern area near the Yemeni border, are ideal hideouts for al-Qaeda. These areas, similar to other al-Qaeda sanctuaries along the Afghan-Pakistan border and the Iraq-Iran border (e.g., home of the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam), are extremely difficult to access. Nevertheless, a U.S. Predator unmanned aircraft took out a private vehicle with Saudi license plates driven by a key al-Qaeda operative in this area in November 2002. In fact, Yemeni authorities have reiterated in the Arab press that Saudi Arabia was emerging in 2002-2003 as a new al-Qaeda center. In October 2000, al-Qaeda sent a bomb-laden skiff from the Saudi port of Jizan that tore into the USS Cole in Aden. A number of significant al-Qaeda suspects wanted by authorities in Germany and the U.S. are known to have fled to Saudi Arabia to seek sanctuary. Given years of anti-Western incitement in the Saudi religious educational system, Saudi Arabia is probably the most sympathetic location for al-Qaeda members to hide. Indeed, in the 1990s Saudis had already become the largest national grouping in al-Qaeda. Major figures in the Wahhabi clergy, such as Sheikh al-Ulwan or Sheikh al-Shuaibi, backed bin Laden. In October 2001, Saudi Arabia's internal intelligence agency ordered a confidential poll of Saudi men between the ages of 25 and 41, that demonstrated that 95% approved of Osama bin Laden's cause. The U.S. announcement in the aftermath of the Iraq War that U.S. forces would be withdrawing from Saudi Arabia should have removed one of al-Qaeda's primary grievances against Washington: the presence of American troops in the Islamic Holy Land. Nonetheless, the multiple bombing attack against Westerners in the kingdom took place. It could be that al-Qaeda recognized that the U.S. withdrawal would undercut their movement and weaken support for their cause. By appearing to force the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, under fire, al-Qaeda could claim victory and build up support in the Middle East. In any case, al-Qaeda is committed to war against the West and to its collapse as its primary objective, and not to a U.S. pullout from Saudi Arabia alone. It is imperative that the U.S. and its Western allies prioritize their diplomatic efforts to demand that the Saudi Arabian government halt its financial support for terrorism - both direct and indirect - once and for all, whether to al-Qaeda or to Hamas and other groups. (The U.S. roadmap for Middle East peace, in fact, requires in the first phase that all Arab states discontinue support for Palestinian groups backing terrorism.) Moreover, Saudi security forces must dismantle the operational infrastructure of al-Qaeda, as the Pakistanis and the Kurds have attempted to do in their own regions. For the war on terrorism to be won, the Saudi front can no longer be ignored.
2003-05-14 00:00:00
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