RIYADH: The Saudi authorities may have dismayed their US allies by speaking out against war on Iraq but the policy does seem to have succeeded in defusing potential popular unrest at home.

Diplomats and analysts say Saudi leaders may be unable to prevent an expected upsurge in attacks on Western expatriates by Muslim radicals if war comes.

But by demonstrating to the mass of their subjects that they are not complicit in any attack on their Arab neighbours, it should help reduce the risk of wider unrest, restricting the violence to a small minority that the authorities can control.

“I don’t see any danger of instability because all of the statements from the government have been solid and consistent,” said Saudi businessman and columnist Hussein Shobokshi.

“They are not bending to American pressure. Their statements are based on clear policy objectives in line with public sentiment,” he told Reuters.

Top Saudi officials have repeatedly said they oppose a US attack on Iraq and will not allow the desert kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, to be used as a launchpad in the way it was in the 1991 Gulf War to free Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

Whether Saudi authorities are practising what they preach is another issue — and diplomats say there are many ways in which Riyadh could discreetly support US military action.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal denied on Wednesday a Washington Post report that Riyadh had agreed to give the US military expanded use of its facilities in an attack on Iraq.

But whatever happens at the Prince Sultan airbase, where several thousand US troops are based, it will not be visible to ordinary Saudis, who oppose an attack on their Arab brethren in Iraq even though many dislike President Saddam Hussein.

“War will put more pressure on the government depending on the position it takes,” a senior Western diplomat said.

“But it doesn’t mean instability because the security regime here is a very strict one.”

MILITANTS: Just after the Sept 11 attacks, Saudi authorities vehemently denied there were any members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group in the country.