A disturbing article.........
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A Kingdom in Crisis
A wave of terror has Saudis asking whether their rulers can stand up to al-Qaeda
By SCOTT MACLEOD | RIYADH
Sunday, Jun. 13, 2004
As a veteran reporter on the global terrorism beat, Frank Gardner knew the dangers facing foreigners in Saudi Arabia when he ventured last week into al-Suwaydi, a Riyadh neighborhood known as a stronghold of Islamic extremists. Gardner, a BBC correspondent, and cameraman Simon Cumbers had arrived in Saudi Arabia a week earlier to cover the aftermath of the May 29 terrorist rampage in the oil-industry city of Khobar, which killed 22. As Gardner and Cumbers prepared to do some filming, a car pulled up alongside them. A man opened fire with a machine pistol, killing Cumbers and leaving Gardner fighting for his life. A photo taken by a bystander shows Gardner, his shirt and trousers soaked in blood, struggling to escape as a group of Saudis stood and watched. According to one account, he pleaded for help by claiming, "I'm a Muslim." He was eventually taken to a hospital, where he remains in critical but improving condition. The killers escaped. Almost immediately, a website favored by al-Qaeda branded the journalists "dirty infidels."
It was the latest episode in al-Qaeda's accelerating and increasingly successful campaign to wreak havoc in Saudi Arabia, the homeland of Osama bin Laden, by taking aim at foreigners working in the kingdom. Two days after the attack on the journalists, a hit squad believed to be linked to al-Qaeda gunned down Robert Jacobs, an American working on a contract to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard, outside his Riyadh home. An almost identical attack in the capital on Saturday killed Kenneth Scroggs, an American who worked for Advanced Electronics Co., a Saudi firm that supplies technology to the armed forces. And in a further escalation, al-Qaeda claimed Saturday to have taken an American, Apache-helicopter specialist Paul M. Johnson, hostage. Riyadh now resembles a fortress, with government buildings, hotels and expat compounds protected by heavily armed Saudi forces and concrete barricades. Travellers endure long queues at police checkpoints. "I get nervous when I see a group of Western-looking foreigners," says Khalid Yousef, a 22-year-old university student in Jidda. "You don't want to get caught in the cross-fire."
Nowhere is anxiety running higher than in the fortified palaces that house the country's royal rulers. Though the al-Saud dynasty has controlled the country for 72 years, the public is losing faith in its ineffectual governance and doubts its ability to snuff out terrorism. British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sherard Cowper-Coles calls the terrorist threat "serious and chronic." One Saudi lawyer, Mansour al-Qerni, is even more pessimistic. "Is this going to end, or are my children going to have to accept this as a part of their lives?" Says a Saudi political analyst: "The way people are talking, it amounts to a no-confidence vote for the government."
Al-Qaeda's campaign to overthrow King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud and establish a Taliban-style regime has now become a constant assault. The attacks are targeting Western experts and the oil trade — the twin pillars that have propped up the House of Saud almost since the desert kingdom was founded in 1932. The Saudis are still far from witnessing anything like Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution —
"Nothing's getting toppled," says one U.S. intelligence official — yet diplomats fear al-Qaeda's tactics may dry up foreign investment at a time when the economy sorely needs it. Anxiety about the world's leading petroleum producer saw oil prices spike to an all-time high of $42.33 per barrel on June 1 before sliding back to $38.45 last week.
The surge of attacks is prompting hundreds of expats to leave, and those who remain behind are scared stiff. "Guys are growing beards and putting 'Allah is Great' bumper stickers on their cars," says a longtime American resident. "A suit and a tie is tantamount to wearing a bulls-eye." For the third time in six weeks, the State Department issued a warning "strongly urging" some 25,000 Americans to quit the country — and a U.S. official told Time that the advisory could remain in place for years. "Al-Qaeda tells [the U.S.] to leave, and so you leave," says a dismayed senior government adviser. "This hands the terrorists a victory."
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