Saudi Arabia and 'creeping
militancy' By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The recent spate of militant attacks
in Saudi Arabia has largely been attributed to the work
of al-Qaeda, and some cells purporting to represent the
terror organization have even claimed responsibility for
some of the bloodshed.
However, intelligence
sources of Pakistani origin in Saudi Arabia tell Asia
Times Online that the militants are more likely
fragmented groups of Saudi youths who want to undermine
the ruling House of Saud. And these include a segment of
the massive royalty that is deprived of key positions.
In the latest violence in the kingdom, an
American who worked for US defense contractor Vinnell
Corp was shot dead on Tuesday in the capital, Riyadh.
Seven Vinnell employees were among the 35 people,
including nine suicide bombers, who died last year in an
attack on a Riyadh foreigners' housing compound.
Gunmen killed a British Broadcasting
Corp journalist on Sunday, and on May 29 militants
stormed a resort in the eastern oil city of Khobar and
took hostages. They killed 22 people, mostly foreigners.
One attacker was captured.
The government has
blamed the attacks on people inspired by or belonging to
Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
According
to Asia Times Online's information, many of the Saudi
militants now active in the country fought in
Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s or
against the present US-led forces in the country, but
the majority have never taken part in any military
action, although they are heavily inspired by radical
Islam, which includes strong anti-US sentiment.
Many Saudis are angered by Riyadh's support of
the US "war on terror" and the help it gave in the
occupation of Iraq. There are more deep-rooted problems,
though.
At the height of the oil boom in 1980,
the per capita income of the kingdom was US$17,000. Last
year, it was $8,200, lagging far behind most other
Persian Gulf oil producers and industrial nations. Saudi
Arabia's population more than doubled from 10.1 million
in 1981 to about 24 million in 2003, but gross domestic
product expanded by only 13 percent. The rapid growth in
the population and lower-than-expected growth in the
economy have created a serious unemployment problem,
prompting calls for sacking foreign labor and radical
reforms to ease dependence on volatile oil sales. Some
estimates say Saudi Arabia needs to create 7 million new
jobs in the next 10 years.
This is a ripe
breeding ground for disaffected people to embrace
militant Islam, with attacks on foreigners in the
country serving not only to threaten US interests, but
also to rattle the foundations of the House of Saud,
which is blamed for all the problems in the first place.
After a bizarre incident at Pakistan's airports
last month, it appears that a series of plane hijackings
could be the next phase of the militants' planning.
According to Asia Times Online's contacts, an
undercover agent in the Pakistani Embassy in Riyadh
acquired a document from the United Kingdom and the
United States directed at Saudi Arabia in which it was
claimed that Saudi Arabia was vulnerable to planes being
hijacked from its territory. The agent passed on the
information - in code - to the Intelligence Bureau in
Islamabad. But in the process of decoding, "Saudi
Arabia" inexplicably became "Pakistan". The report was
presented to Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who
immediately placed all Pakistani airports on red alert.
Once the Pakistani Embassy in Riyadh clarified
the situation, the alert was withdrawn and an inquiry
commissioned to establish just how the mistake happened.
Nevertheless, the initial threat of hijackings
in Saudi Arabia is being taken seriously.
As in
the past, though, the Saudi establishment has responded
to the threat of Islamic militancy by leaning even more
toward conservatism. All liberal voices are being
powerfully crushed, while clerics have been given more
importance than before, with many of them assigned to
trying to iron out the problems between the House of
Saud and the militants to put a halt to what the
authorities see as the "creeping militancy" in Saudi
Arabia that extends now even to parts of the
establishment.
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