Close-up
2 attacks alter Saudi Arabia's response to al-Qaida

By Faye Bowers
The Christian Science Monitor

	BALKIS PRESS / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS, 2003 The Al-Hamra expatriate housing compound after it was hit by a suicide truck bombing in Riyadh on May 12. Saudi Arabia was the target of a second terrorist attack Nov. 8 — events that suggested the country was now the main target of al-Qaida.
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Related stories 2 Saudi sheiks make long journey to tolerance Many Americans reportedly leaving country after attacks

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — When al-Qaida attacked Saudi Arabia on May 12 — and again on Nov. 8 — it brought home a cold, hard truth for the rulers of Riyadh: The house of Al Saud was now al-Qaida's primary target — even more so than the United States.

That realization is triggering major changes in the land where al-Qaida and other militant groups have long drawn ideological and financial support.

After Sept. 11, Saudi Arabia went through a period of denial (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi). But now the royal family is rounding up suspected terrorists, cracking down on al-Qaida's financial backers and radical clerics, and moving toward significant educational and gender reforms.

How it will turn out is not at all clear. "There are those who believe in controlled change, and those who say we should rip through the changes," says Khaled al-Maeena, editor of Arab News, in Saudi Arabia. "And there are those who say any change should come under the umbrella of Islam. All three are struggling to come to the forefront."

The faces are everywhere — on display in restaurants, shop windows, and the opening pages of the main daily newspapers.

They are the 26 most-wanted young men in Saudi Arabia, sought in connection with the two suicide bombings here that took the lives of 53 people, including nine Americans. The bounty on these men is high: 1 million Saudi rials ($267,000) each. Supply leads on a terror cell, and you receive $1,867,000. Help foil a terrorist attack, and it's worth $1,333,000.

The rewards are part of an unprecedented campaign to enlist everyday Saudis in this battle against al-Qaida.

With the terror group's strikes against the royal family's home turf, the small inner circle of princes has united and is going public, reaching out to its own population and to the United States.

One Saudi man phoned the new government hotline recently to report that Othman al-Amri, No. 11 on the most-wanted list, had stopped at his home while driving through the area. About a week earlier, someone tipped off the authorities to the location of Ibrahim al-Rayes, who was later killed by security forces. From May through the end of 2003, some 300 other terror suspects have been detained or killed, according to officials.

The Saudis have also become much more cooperative with the United States. Teams of Treasury, FBI and CIA officers are now based here, working hand in hand with Saudi officials at the Mahabith, Saudi Arabia's counterpart to the FBI. "We have very good cooperation right now," says a Western law-enforcement officer based here.

These teams are beginning to establish certain patterns. For example, they've been able to trace many of the guns they have captured to both Yemen and Afghanistan. Moreover, with each arrest, the teams gather additional information that leads to others.

The information developed by the teams has led the Saudis to install heat-sensitive cameras and barbed-wire fences at or near the most frequently used smuggling routes along its border with Yemen. That has already begun to pay off. On Dec. 27, Saudi officials announced they had arrested more than 4,000 "infiltrators" trying to cross that border, and seized a large cache of ammunition.

The cooperation includes the pursuit of financial backing for terrorists, too. Since last spring, the Saudis have instituted a number of measures to block funding: Collection boxes were removed from mosques, and tighter restrictions were placed on financial transfers and charitable donations.

But preventing personal donations to Arabs perceived to be in need, such as Palestinians, will be much more difficult for the Saudi government to control; nearly everyone here bemoans Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

"We have to support our brothers in Palestine," says Nasser al-Rasheed, a bespectacled conservative Muslim who has the traditional untrimmed white beard. "I would give money to a Palestinian I trust. But I would not give to Hamas (the Palestinian resistance movement placed on the U.S. list of terror organizations). But how do you know the difference?"

On the international front, the cooperation has paid off. Last month, the United States and Saudi Arabia jointly designated two European organizations as financial backers of terrorists: Bosnia-based Vazir and the Liechtenstein-based Hochburg AG.

Still, no one thinks the crackdown will end soon. Officials estimate 2,000 to 10,000 mujahedeen returned here from fighting wars in Afghanistan. "A subculture exists here, those who fell into what the Saudis refer to as jihadist or takfiri terminology," says one Western diplomat in Riyadh.

These jihadis have switched tactics as well, targeting intelligence officials. On Dec. 29, Lt. Col. Ibrahim al-Dhaleh parked his Lexus and stepped away just before it exploded. Earlier in the month, Maj. Gen. Abdelaziz al-Huweirini, the No. 3 in the intelligence service, was shot and wounded in Riyadh.

"We've got to recognize that we're fighting an ideology that springs out of a radical or xenophobic Islam," the Western diplomat says.

"If we caught Osama bin Laden tomorrow, I am convinced al-Qaida would be finished. But that won't end the war on terror. The ideology is entrenched in the Muslim world. We will probably be battling this for the next generation."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company