Re: Al Queda Strikes the Saudis

"Dave Simpson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> They remind me of that old Clint Eastwood western:
>
>
> "They don't like Strangers [in Agua Caliente]."
>
> "They don't like ANYBODY [in Agua Caliente]."  [wry, sardonic
> laughter]
>
>
> Al-Qaeda doesn't like anybody -- the UN, the Red Crescent, even the
> "insufficiently" puritanical fundamentalist Wahhabi fellow Saudis (not
> to mention farther-"fallen" Sunnis and worse yet, the Shiites).
>
> Our Bush administration's willingness to coddle the royal family (due
> to oil interests) only baits al-Qaida more and gives it propaganda
> fuel.  (One of the true curses of this world, proof that life is
> unfair, is that so much oil wealth is found in such a God-forsaken
> part of the world as the Middle East, with such dysfunctionality and
> worse.)
>
> The succession is going to be messy in Saudi Arabia.  Abdullah, the
> leader to be successor, is a worse hard-liner toward the West than the
> King; that's only one of many problems we face in the future.
>
> ...
>
> [DEBKA]
>
> Tribal Backing for Saudi Rulers Ebbs as al Qaeda Creeps Closer
>
>
> Though similar in operational method to the May 12 triple suicide
> attack in Riyadh, al Qaeda's suicide assault on the Muhaya housing
> complex in the Saudi capital Saturday night November 9 exposed two new
> features. Osama bin Laden's terrorists have taken a threatening step
> closer to one of their premier targets, the Saudi royal house; and
> their recruitment base of non-Saudi zealots is expanding.
>
> US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who flew into Riyadh
> for security talks with Crown Prince Abdullah from Baghdad, said
> Monday, November 10, to Al Arabiya TV: "It is clear to me that al
> Qaeda wants to take down the royal family and government of Saudi
> Arabia."
>
> The final casualty toll was impossible to confirm Monday, November 10
> because, for one, rescuers were still digging through the rubble of
> the destroyed 200-villa compound that housed highly-paid professional
> foreigners from Arab countries; for another, Saudi officials were as
> usual at pains to minimize the death and destruction. The figure is
> certainly is the range of hundreds. The killer team reportedly gained
> entry to the fenced compound by posing as Saudi security officers and
> opening fire on the guards before driving in and blowing up their bomb
> car -- or cars.
>
> The attack, occurring one day after the United States shut down its
> diplomatic missions in the kingdom, struck a district close to the
> diplomatic compound and, even more significantly, around half a mile
> from the homes of top royal princes, including Prince Nayef, the
> interior minister responsible for the kingdom's crackdown on al Qaeda.
>
> Saudi security forces are braced for further terrorist attacks before
> Ramadan ends next week. They have beefed up security strength in
> Mecca, center of Muslim shrines and pilgrimage, after a series of
> clashes in the city prefaced the Muhaya bombing -- in an exact
> parallel to the May 12 assaults.
>
> On November 3, Saudi police killed two armed men and captured six. On
> November 6, two terrorists blew themselves up in a shootout to evade
> capture. On the same day, the Riyadh police shot a third terrorist who
> had reached the capital from Mecca. November 9, the suicide bombers
> struck.
>
> The Saudis found to their surprise that, while two of the captured
> terrorists, were Saudis, four were Nigerian. They revealed under
> questioning that their al Qaeda commanders had exploited the stream of
> Ramadan pilgrims making for the Muslim shrines to plant several
> African killer cells in the kingdom, assuming Saudi counter-terror
> agents would be watching out mainly fro Muslims from Arab states or
> the Far East. Each of these cells has two or three Saudi "escorts,"
> who take them to hideouts where they pick up weapons and explosives
> and are then led to target. The number of these infiltrator-cells is
> unknown. They are thought to have scattered among the pilgrimage
> cities of Mecca and Medina as well as other cities, primarily Riyadh.
>
> The two terrorists who blew themselves up in Mecca on November 6
> turned out to be the remainder of the cell which moved to Riyadh. The
> investigation is probing to find out if this cell executed or
> supported the attack on Muhaya. Two of its members preferred to die
> rather than betray the operation scheduled three days hence, the third
> got away.
>
> Similarly, three or four days before the May 12 attacks, Saudi and US
> intelligence discovered and encircled the bombers' hideout in advance
> of their operation, but enough escaped to regroup at prepared
> alternative secret bases and pounce from there.
>
> This time too, the Americans and Saudis knew a fresh assault was
> imminent. On November 8, Washington released information that
> terrorists had moved from the planning to the operational stage and
> shut all diplomatic missions in the kingdom.
>
> DEBKAfile's terrorism experts note: The sequence of events lays bare a
> major obstacle in the capabilities of the royal Saudi authorities and
> the intelligence resources at their command to fight al Qaeda. On top
> of the conventional terror prevention methods, like human and
> electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering, the Saudis are
> confronted with the need to bargain perpetually for the cooperation of
> local tribal, clan and clerical leaders in handing over al Qaeda
> suspects. Saudi security officers in pursuit of terrorists dare not
> venture into a district before the local chiefs and imams have been
> won over. The alternative is wholesale war against one or more of the
> tribes that are the backbone of the kingdom's population.
>
> Shortly after the May 12 attack, our sources reported that Crown
> Prince Abdullah and other influential princes rebuked Prince Nayef,
> accusing him of falling down on the job of prevention. This charge
> would not be warranted now. Nayef and Saudi intelligence performed to
> the limit of their ability to prevent the Muhaya attack. Their efforts
> this time were defeated by the widening rift between the throne in
> Riyadh and the local chieftains and clerics, especially the teachers
> at the local madressas. The situation now is that local leaders often
> let security forces believe they are are operating in friendly
> territory when those leaders give the game away to their al Qaeda
> quarry and help them elude capture.
>
> This lack of local sympathy for the royal house and its efforts to
> fight terror is particularly striking in the southern provinces and
> the Hijaz region of Mecca and Medina on the Red Sea coast, where the
> Ramad Tribe reigns. For the decades that the Sudeiri branch of the
> royal house has ruled the government in Riyadh, the southern and
> eastern tribes have been left in the cold while royal favors were
> bestowed on the tribes of the central Nejd region. The alienated
> tribes, long denied privileges and senior positions in central
> government, are now settling their scores with Riyadh by granting
> solidarity to the anti-royal resistance posed by al Qaeda.
>
> The Saudi Interior minister's efforts to clamp down on terrorists and
> foil attacks are seriously cramped by this lack of support in key
> regions of the kingdom.
>
> A further danger is posed by al Qaeda's success in developing another
> center of recruitment, Kuwait. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources
> reveal exclusively that since mid-October, hundreds of al Qaeda
> recruits in Kuwait are entering Iraq directly or through Saudi Arabia.
> The scale of this traffic is beginning to rival the movement of Arab
> and other al Qaeda fighters into Iraq from Syria. The Kuwaitis find it
> easy to enter Iraq posing as merchants with business in Baghdad. At
> the border, they are picked up by former Iraqi military intelligence
> officers loyal to Saddam Hussein and transferred to flashpoint zones
> in Baghdad, Ramadi, Falluja, Samarra, and Tikrit where they join the
> battle against the coalition.
>
> Both the Saudi and Kuwaiti authorities have not been able to stop this
> dangerous cross-border movement.
>
> The Muhaya bombing exposed the breadth of al Qaeda's Middle East
> operations and objectives. Operating from bases in Iran, Kuwait, Saudi
> Arabia, the Persian Gulf, Syria, and Lebanon, the fundamentalist
> extremists are acting on a broad front against America and its allies,
> the Saudi throne, and Israel.

     Dave, you failed to explain how the unwavering republican support for
the terrorist regime in Saudi Arabia is all the Democrat's fault.

John