Reality bites
In the week following the second devastating attack in Riyadh in less than six months, Saudis finally woke up to the fact of home-grown terrorism, writes John R Bradley
Even Hamas, a Palestinian faction that has spearheaded a suicide bombing campaign against Israelis, joined the international condemnation last week of the suicide attack in Riyadh which ripped through a residential compound. Saudi Arabia quickly blamed the attack on Al-Qa'eda.
At least 18 people, mostly Arabs, are now known to have died when bombers blew up an explosives-laden car on 8 November. Five children were among those slain.
"Hamas condemns the bombing attack ... which led to the killing of innocent children and women and other civilians," the Islamic group said in a statement on a pro-Hamas Web site, adding that the Riyadh bombing "aimed to harm the security and stability of an Arab and Muslim country that represents a fundamental part of our nation".
The foreigners who lived in the mainly Arab residential compound told reporters that they were visited by Saudi religious police three months before the attacks, and put on notice that their "Westernised lifestyle" was under scrutiny. As after the 12 May bombing, liberal Saudi writers are drawing a link between the extremism of some leading figures in Saudi Arabia's religious establishment and the kind of ideology that encourages Saudis to attack "infidels".
Most of the residents of the Muhaya compound were Lebanese, as were seven of the dead. About 500 grieving relatives gathered at Beirut's international airport as five bodies arrived. The bodies of two Lebanese children remained in Saudi Arabia where their injured parents are still recovering. Four Egyptians were also among those killed.
The choice of target in the attack, which hit mostly Arabs and Muslims, has baffled many in the region. It may be an indication that Al- Qa'eda's rage is directed as much at Muslims seen as having slipped from the true path as at Western "infidels". But it could also have been, according to popular Islamist Web sites, because many of the Lebanese residents were Christian Maronites.
Muhaya is typical of compounds housing members of the large contingent of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia; a place where non- Saudis and even some Saudis escape rules banning alcohol and the mixing of unrelated women and men in public, and the requirement of women to cloak and veil themselves when outside their homes.
Muhaya had a coffee shop where men and women sat together chatting over water pipes and watching foreign movies and other entertainment on a big screen television, while bikini-clad women often swam in an adjacent pool.
Agents of the Saudi religious police -- the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice -- roam Saudi streets and shopping malls berating or even manhandling those who violate the social code. Its chief holds the rank of cabinet minister in the kingdom, where the royal family retains power with the support of conservative religious authorities.
Seven bearded, robed religious police officers visited the Muhaya compound three months ago, saying they had reports of an "un-Islamic" party being held there, residents said. The religious police scuffled with compound guards who barred their entry until the compound owner arrived. During the delay, residents of both sexes slipped out of the complex coffee shop.
Saudi investigators say at least one attacker was in a bomb-packed vehicle, while others may have entered on foot. The attackers first exchanged fire with security guards, then drove in a vehicle "painted with police insignia" and blew it up.
Saudi Arabia's top police official says his forces are pursuing terrorists with "the rifle and the sword", but had not yet made any arrests. Saudi security officials had earlier told the newswires that possible suspects were being held in connection with Saturday's bombing. Others were being questioned about the activities of militants in the kingdom, the officials had been quoted as saying.
But "nobody was detained yet", Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
Prince Nayef, who was visiting Tunisia, told the SPA that "courageous" Saudi security forces "will continue chasing those criminals until they catch them and bring them to justice".
"We will not open dialogue with them [the terrorists]; we will deal with them using the rifle and the sword," said Nayef, whose ministry oversees Saudi police.
The Saudi monarch vowed at the first cabinet meeting following the attack that "retaliation will be stiff". The kingdom "will act with an iron fist against all those who threaten the security of the country, its citizens and those who live there", said a statement read on behalf of ailing King Fahd.
The declaration came after a security source said at least 5,000 soldiers and police had been deployed in Mecca, where as many as 2.5 million Muslims were expected to celebrate the last 10 days of the fasting month of Ramadan.
The decision to deploy extra forces to the holiest city in Islam was reached after security forces smashed a suspected Al-Qa'eda cell in the city in the week before the Riyadh blast, announcing it had been preparing an attack on the faithful in Mecca. Press reports said the security contingent had been doubled compared to previous years.
Some two million foreign pilgrims and 500,000 Saudis were expected to throng Mecca over the last 10 days of the Muslim fasting month, which is due to conclude around 24-25 November.
The London-based Arabic language weekly magazine, Al-Majalla, quoted an e-mail from a purported Al-Qa'eda operative identified as Abu Mohamed Al-Ablaj as making the first claim of responsibility for the attack. Saudis portrayed Saturday's attack as proof of Al- Qa'eda's willingness to shed Arab and Muslim blood in its zeal to bring down the Saudi monarchy. The Al-Ablaj e-mail said Al-Qa'eda believed "working with Americans and mixing with them" was forbidden.
Earlier at the scene of the explosion, a police investigator told reporters on condition of anonymity that one of the four unidentified dead was believed to have been in the explosives- packed vehicle and that an unknown number of other attackers entered the compound on foot. However, no names of either the attackers or security personnel who died defending the compound have yet been released.
The Saudi daily Okaz reported that investigators were trying to determine the identity of the suspected attacker in the vehicle with DNA analysis of body parts found scattered at the bomb site.
Okaz also said officials were watching car workshops more carefully after determining the attackers may have had the vehicle repainted to resemble a police car. Tailor shops specialising in military and police uniforms are also being closely monitored. The paper did not elaborate, but analysts say it is increasingly likely that the attackers could have come from within the Saudi security apparatus itself. American officials have long said they believe Al-Qa'eda has infiltrated the Saudi security forces.
The SPA also carried comments by Saudi Arabia's top Muslim cleric, Abdul-Aziz Al- Sheik, condemning the attacks and describing them as "crimes". Al-Sheik said "the sanctity of Muslim blood is known in Islamic law, and unjust shedding of that blood is one of the greatest sins." Saudi opposition groups claim none of the "suicide bombers" actually died, but instead detonated explosives in the vehicle by remote control after escaping on foot.
In an unrelated development, a federal judge ruled that two Saudi Arabia princes, who have denied allegations in a one trillion dollar lawsuit tying them to the 11 September attacks, are beyond the reach of US courts.
The suit, filed by survivors and the families of victims of the 2001 attacks, accused the Saudis of having long-established, personal relationships with Saudi-born fugitive Osama Bin Laden and officials of the Afghan Taliban militia. The officials are the defence minister, Prince Sultan, and Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former director of general intelligence and now the Saudi ambassador in Britain.
The lawsuit also alleged that Sultan had donated millions of dollars to Saudi charities that subsequently forwarded the money to Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda network and other terrorist organisations.
In an order issued last Friday, US District Judge James Robertson ruled that his court lacked jurisdiction under both international and US law and dismissed all claims against the two Saudi officials.
Both men had claimed foreign sovereign immunity, which protects sovereign governments from such suits. Robertson's order said a 1976 US law that limits sovereign immunity under certain circumstances also did not apply to them. He said both princes vehemently denied the allegations, but his ruling did not deal with whether they were true.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 20 - 26 November 2003 (Issue No. 665)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/re5.htm