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Comment: Is Saudi Arabia on the Brink of Revolution? Click for Comment Archive at bottom of page
The chaos in Iraq must surely give many Saudis pause for thought. Unlike Iraq, there are not ethnic tensions in the country. Among advocates of reform, it is doubtful that even among the most modernised, Western-educated technocrats, that there is strong support for a radical move away from Islamic political theory as the basis of the Saudi constitutional system. August
09,
2004--On
Saturday August 4, 1990, CNN reported that 170,000 Iraqi
There is little doubt that the supreme prize today for al-Qaeda would be the double whammy of a serious attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities that would both undermine the Saudi Government and inflict serious damage on Western economies through a big surge in the price of oil. Saudi Arabian crude supply is estimated to have reached over 9 million barrels per day which is over 11% of world supply. The loss of this supply for even a relatively short period would likely induce a worldwide economic recession. However, instability within the country over a long period would likely have greater consequences. (See-Oil Market Statistics below) Balancing a rapid economic modernisation programme while maintaining a very conservative religious based society is bound to have resulted in pressure points at some stage. The seeds of the current armed dissent were sown a quarter century ago. In
the year that hundreds of Saudi religious extremists took over the Grand
Mosque in 1979 was the year of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the seizure of the Grand Mosque was a serious jolt for the House of Saud. In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and soon became the target of a Jihad holy war funded by Saudi Arabia and the US. Thousands of Saudis including Osama bin Laden headed for Afghanistan and their return home coincided with the arrival of more than a half million American servicemen in the Kingdom. It is not surprising that many of the returnees had been further radicalised by their experience in Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence estimates that 10,000 to 20,000 men passed through the Afghan training camps. It is ironic that Jimmy Carter, a later winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, paved the way for the rise of Osama bin Laden. On the credit side, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of communism.
Today, as the murder of an Irish expatriate engineer in Riyadh last week confirms, al-Qaeda is focusing on soft targets by in seeking to undermine the Saudi economy through driving Western expatriates from the Kingdom. However, The Los Angeles Times has reported that al-Qaeda may be seeking to stage a spectacular assassination by killing a senior member of the Royal Family. It quotes a Saudi dissident in London Saad Fagih as saying: 'Many people are saying the jihadis are doing a big mistake by targeting foreigners..They should have targeted the royal family long ago. We would admire jihadis if they would attack the royal family rather than these compounds.' Last July, the Times reports that a group posted on a website affiliated with Al Qaeda detailed plans for killing Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz, the powerful Saudi interior minister. The plans described Nayif's daily routine and identified his residences and the way his car is concealed among other cars in his motorcade. 'If the jihadis succeed in getting one of the royals, people will join them in the thousands,' Fagih predicted. Intelligence officials and outside analysts estimate that Al Qaeda has 500 to 1,500 hard-core activists, a small number in a country with a population of about 19 million. Saudi Arabia is in a quandary in responding to the need for political and social reform. The Government fears that a fast track approach would precipitate revolution while too slow a process would provide support for extremists. The Saudi
Press Agency announced last week that municipal elections across Saudi Arabia, the first
such voting in decades, will begin in November. Last October, Crown Prince Abdullah, the
de facto leader, requested the authorities to prepare for municipal elections within a
year. Plans for the elections, the first in four decades, fin Lollowed
pressure from the United States and domestic advocates to grant some
political participation and freedom of expression. Last March, advocates
of reform had received a setback when about
a dozen reform advocates were arrested. Half of the number were released within
days
after pledging they would no longer lobby publicly for change. Three remain in
detention, and they are to go on trial this week.
Many of the detained activists had signed a petition suggesting that
Saudi Arabia be turned into a constitutional monarchy. Government
officials have
accused the campaigners of engaging in "incitement," sowing
dissent, threatening national unity and having "some contacts with
foreign sides."
The first stage of the planned elections will be held in the region of Riyadh, the capital, and
will begin in November. The second stage will cover the Eastern Province and
southern regions. The third stage would be held in the western regions
of Jeddah, Makkah and Medina and the northern regions after the annual pilgrimage
to those places in January. It is thought that women will not have the
right to vote.
The chaos in Iraq must surely give many Saudis
pause for thought. Unlike Iraq, there are not ethnic tensions in the
country. Among advocates of reform, it is doubtful that even among the
most modernised, Western-educated technocrats, that there is strong
support for a radical move away from Islamic political theory as the
basis of the Saudi constitutional system. However, there must be a
realignment of the pact between the House of Saud and the conservative
religious establishment. The link with the Wahhabi doctrine of Islam
dates back to the mid-18th century and supporters of al-Qaeda can
justifiably claim that they are the true believers. In the schools, the
teaching of the Holy Quoran (Koran), accounts for about 40% of the
curriculum and the emphasis is often on an extreme interpretation, in
particular in fostering a negative attitude to what are termed
non-believers. The Government no longer has full control of the
media with the rise of media services like Al Jazeera TV. Saudi
society has undergone a rapid modernisation in the space of a few
decades. There is still time for gradual change from the system of
absolute monarchy but the clock is ticking. Terror in the Kingdom
The following is a compilation from The Los Angeles Times that
has been updated by Finfacts:
Islamic extremists have killed scores of Westerners and Muslims in
Saudi Arabia in a little more than a year, but they might switch tactics
and target a member of the Saudi royal family. 2003 May 12: Suicide bombings at three Riyadh housing compounds kill nine Americans and at least 26 others. Nov. 8: Suicide bombing at a Riyadh housing compound kills at least 17 people, most of them Muslims. 2004 April 21: A suicide car bomber attacks a police headquarters in Riyadh, killing at least six people. May 1: Gunmen kill seven oil workers in an attack on the offices of a Houston-based company in the western port city of Yanbu. May 22: Gunmen kill a German national in Riyadh. May 29: Gunmen shoot up oil industry compounds in Khobar, killing at least 22. June 6: A BBC cameraman Irishman Simon Cumbers is killed and a reporter is wounded in a shooting in Riyadh. June 8: Robert C. Jacobs, an Illinois native who helped train the Saudi national guard, is shot to death at his home in Riyadh. June 12: American Kenneth Scroggs is fatally shot in Riyadh. June 18: Lockheed Martin engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. of New Jersey, kidnapped six days earlier in Riyadh, is beheaded. August 3: Irishman Anthony Christopher Higgins is shot dead in his office. He had worked as an engineer in Saudi Arabia for 27 years.
Source: Oil Market Report.Org
Source: Oil Market Report.Org
Source: Oil Market Report.Org
Source: OPEC Our Comment feature has been incorporated in the:
The
Finfacts Ireland News & Comment Service
from October 2004
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troops were
massed on the Kuwaiti border with Saudi Arabia as President George Bush
Snr. was in discussions with Saudi King Fahd on American military
intervention in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The oil fields
which had fuelled the dramatic
