The Kingdom of God  by Raymond Barrett  April to June 2004 may prove be to defining months in the history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Two major attacks against foreign oil companies and their staff in the cities of Yanbu and Khobar left over thirty dead and confidence in the Saudi security services on the critical list. In the wake of the killings in Khobar, a senior government figure claimed on CNN that the attacks were carried out by the last of six terrorist cells that had been operating in the kingdom. The credibility of these words has been shattered by three separate killings since that statement was issued. If the world's confidence in the Kingdom and their ability to combat internal terrorism could be measured in numerical terms, an oil price of $42 a barrel (reached in late May) says it all.  While such attacks are often characterized as being simply "Islamic or Islamist" in nature, there is a political element to these actions that has its origins in deep-seated opposition to the ruling family. This opposition has a long history and has its roots in the very way that the state was founded. Established by force during the early part of the last century, the ruling royal family (al-Saud) has ruled absolutely ever since. Up until the present problems encountered from Al-Qaeda, the house of Saud had faced two major crises in the past 25 years. Though both of these incidents occurred in the holiest place in the Islamic world, the grand mosque in Mecca, to qualify them as being simply religious in nature would be an over-simplification.  November 20, 1979 saw the start of a 15-day siege of the grand mosque led by a radical Saudi cleric rallying against the perceived moral and political corruption of the ruling family. While the movement was very much stepped in Islamic tradition (invoking the concept of the mahdi, or return of the twelfth Imam) they also had a clear political aim. The group hoped that the populace itself would rally to their cause of overthrowing the government. The plot failed however and the subsequent execution by beheading of 63 of the rebels in cites throughout the country served as a warning to any who might follow a similar path. This homegrown attempt at rebellion was counterbalanced by a day of massive civil unrest in July 1987 during the hajj, when Iranian supporters of Ayatollah Khomeni unveiled images of their Shi'a leader in the bastion of Sunni Islam. Effigies of Ronald Reagan were then burnt which led to clashes with the police. This violence and a subsequent stampede left over 400 dead.(1)  While both of these incidents resulted in large losses of life, they can be classified as isolated or passing incidents. This is in marked difference to the present protracted campaign being mounted by Al Qaeda. At the turn of this century, isolated attacks on western expatriates were passed off as mafia-style killings for control of the illegal alcohol racket. This explanation was seriously doubted throughout the region and in particular by a source I questioned who lived there during the 1980's. It was widely acknowledged that groups with links to al-Qaeda were behind these random killings of foreign workers. Seeing as these incidents often only involved a single victim, security officials could live in a state of denial regarding their true nature. To admit that Saudi citizens might have carried out such acts of violence would involve admitting that there was a serious, violent and organized opposition to the government, something that is anathema to the country's rulers.  The ability of the authorities to deny that there is a protracted anti-government campaign in the country has disappeared with the large scale and intensive attacks in Riyadh, Yanbu and Khobar this year. Gunmen shot and killed six people in the western coastal city of Yanbu in April. The fatalities all worked at an oil refinery co-owned by Exxon Mobil in conjunction with a Saudi company. The four perpetrators were subsequently shot and killed by Saudi security officials. May 2004 witnessed another bolder attack on what is described by some as the heart of the Saudi oil industry, Khobar. This part of the country has mushroomed over the last fifty years from a village to an area populated with tens of thousands of foreign workers, specializing in the extraction of Saudi Arabia's only real source of wealth, oil. Since then a number of individual Americans have been shot and another kidnapped and beheaded.  Though the victims are foreigners, such attacks are directed against the Saudi ruling family. Foreign workers are accused of propping up the government, by providing the necessary expertise to pump the eight million barrels of oil that the country produces each day. This dependency on foreign labor in the oil industry is so heavy that a large-scale exodus of expatriates would have a significant effect on productivity and the economy as a whole. This is the perceived Achilles heel of the Saudi economy (and thus the government) and the various terror groups in the country are directing their activities against it.  However, what has made the killings this year stand out from others in the past has been the brutality of the attacks. In Yanbu, one of the bodies was tied to the back of a vehicle that was then dragged to a local school. After shooting in the air to get the attention of the students, one of the men involved urged the young students to go to Iraq to fight and kill Americans in a similar vein. The attacks in Khobar featured a similar incident where the body of a British victim was dragged behind a vehicle before being dumped on the side of the road. For such an incident to occur twice in a matter of months cannot be accidental; instilling fear in to the expatriate community must be a strategic aim of such attacks, and not merely representative of some particular carnality on behalf of the perpetrators.  Terror groups primary weapon is fear. The efficacy of such an approach was seen when over a hundred expatriate oil workers left Yanbu in wake of that attack, shutting down the operation there. There had been attacks before, without such an exodus. In this case the ferocity of these killings must have been decisive. Whether the more recent killings in Khobar will lead to another exodus, only time will tell. However, a recent article in the Beirut-based The Daily Star(2) suggests that the over 7,000 foreign employees of Saudi Aramco are upping security measures rather than exiting en masse. It also reported that some are relocating temporarily to Bahrain, less than an hour's commute away.  A major source of uncertainty is the lack of confidence in the security services. Claims that the Saudi security forces could control the situation after the attack in Yanbu were severely damaged after the Khobar attack. On top of this, the fact that the attackers managed to "escape" from the Special Forces surrounding the location further undermines their credibility. With explanations that range for incompetence to collaboration being rumored, confidence in the police is scarce on the ground. The fact that his strike occurred in the nerve centre of the oil industry defies the stance taken by the government that they have their opponents on the run.  The kidnapping and beheading of an American civilian is only further proof that the groups opposed to the ruling family are more entrenched and powerful than the authorities are willing to admit. This case has been a real litmus test for the police and intelligence services. The fact that this killing occurred despite the concentrated efforts of the security services is a clear indication that the ruling family is losing the vice-like grip that they once had on the country. Despite police shooting dead the leader and three other militants of the group that claimed responsibility for the killing, full confidence has not yet been restored in the security services. Claims posted on an al-Qaeda website insisted that the kidnappers had gotten support from security officials in the form of police uniforms and cars.  A study by the RAND Arroyo Center in 2000 focusing on the potential of ethnic conflict in the kingdom highlighted that certain "tipping points"(3) could lead to large-scale unrest to break out in countries such as Saudi Arabia. Undoubtedly, for the present opposition groups, the current US occupation of Iraq has further fanned the flames of anti-American (and thus anti-Al-Saud) sentiment. The invasion of Iraq has given further credence to radicals who insist that the Iraq is only the first stage in a US/Zionist plot to control the entire Middle East.  While the political objectives of Al-Qaeda and their associated groups are manifold, one clear aim remains the over throw of the present government. Until recently, this would have been seen as a complete impossibility, given the level of control they were seen to exert in all areas of life in the country. Though with each bolder attack, coupled with the following lack of arrests, this image of absolute imperviousness is getting just ever so weaker. The idea that there could be an alternative political future for Saudi Arabia has become at least a speculation, whereas in the past such an idea would have been labeled unimaginable. Notes (1). Graz, Liesl, The Turbulent Gulf (London, I.B. Tauris, 1992), 122. (2). Szayna, Thomas S., Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict (RAND, 2000), 256. (3). Stanley, Bruce (AP), The Daily Star (Kuwait edition), June 17, 2004. ________________________ Raymond Barrett is an Instructor at Mubarak Al-Kabeer Joint Command Staff College, Ministry of Defence, Kuwait. ACTIONS: >> email this article to a friend  >> react to this article  >> more articles Note: Please email your opinion to op-ed@majalla.org; Op-Ed articles are not peer-reviewed. New Op-Ed articles are published monthly, and as special edition when warranted