RIYADH: Two years after al Qaeda opened a new front in its global struggle with a wave of suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, its local network is fragmented but splinter groups still threaten the oil-exporting giant. Analysts say a security crackdown after the May 12, 2003, bombings — which killed dozens of people including nine Americans — has broken up the cells which waged a series of bombings, shootings and kidnapping in Saudi Arabia.
And a sustained media campaign to drain support for the violence, combined with modest political reform and a sharp upswing in oil prices, has helped the absolute monarchy ride out, for now, its most serious challenge in years.
“It’s been clear for a long time that the militants were diminishing, although not a defeated force,” said Kevin Rosser of London-based Control Risks, pointing to the declining sophistication of attacks since 2003.
After the three suicide bombings at foreign residential compounds in Riyadh in 2003, bombers followed up six months later with a meticulously planned, devastating attack which killed 18 people in an area close to several royal palaces.
In the months that followed foreigners and security forces were targeted in more bombings and assassination attempts. In May last year 22 people were killed when gunmen rampaged through an expatriate housing compound and just weeks later an American engineer was kidnapped and beheaded in Riyadh.
The violence prompted thousands of skilled Western expatriates to leave, raising questions about Saudi Arabia’s economic future if Al Qaeda achieved its goal of expelling non-Muslims from the country where Islam was born.
Housing compounds for expatriates remain fortified camps, surrounded by high walls, barbed wire and sandbags. Saudi National Guards man machine gun posts at the gates. Banks and hotels ring themselves with concrete barriers against suicide bombers and some Westerners are commuting in armoured cars.
But Saudi security forces have gradually eroded the militants’ fighting force, seizing tons of explosives and thousands of weapons from arms caches across the country. And 23 of the 26 most wanted militants have been killed or captured.
The elaborate network which followers of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden had set up in his homeland in the run-up to May 2003 has been seriously disrupted.
“The Al Qaeda organisation of two years ago no longer exists in Saudi Arabia,” said Saudi analyst Fares Houzam. “What remains is separate small groups with little coordination”.—Reuters
