Saudi Arabia Hopes Laden Death to End Terrorism Used at Home
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hopes Osama bin Laden’s death will help efforts to combat terrorism and dismantle terror cells that have been used to attack the Arab world’s largest economy, the official news agency said.
Bin Laden’s death in a firefight with U.S. troops may undermine the ideology behind terrorism, the Riyadh-based Saudi Press Agency said today, citing an unidentified government official. Saudi citizens have “been among the most targeted ones” by the terrorist group, it said.
Islamic militants launched a serious of violent attacks in the kingdom that aimed to weaken the Al Saud family’s control of the world’s largest oil reserves and break the kingdom’s relationship with its U.S. ally. Militants targeted Western nationals in a campaign of kidnappings and bombings from 2003 until a crackdown suppressed militant activity in the kingdom.
“From 2003, there were large-scale attacks against specific Saudi facilities,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said today in a phone interview. “These were designed to bring down the House of Saud and establish an al- Qaeda friendly government.”
The U.S. had been hunting for the 54-year-old bin Laden and his supporters in Afghanistan and Pakistan since al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. He was killed yesterday by U.S. forces in a compound in Abbottabad, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Pakistan’s capital.
Crude oil jumped to the highest level since September 2008 early in the day, amid concern that bin Laden’s death might spur retaliatory attacks that disrupt supplies, before declining. Oil for June delivery fell 31 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $113.62 a barrel at 1:30 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, it touched $114.65, the highest level since Sept. 22, 2008.
The Saudi Ministry of Interior under Prince Nayef cracked down on al-Qaeda militants and their supporters in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has arrested 11,527 people since Sept. 11, 2001, for their alleged involvement in terrorism, the ministry said on April 24.
“The states in the Middle East, particularly and most importantly Saudi Arabia, have had a very iron-fisted response since 2004 to Osama bin Laden,” John Sfakianakis, chief economist of Banque Saudi Fransi (BSFR), said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “Saudi Arabia faced terrorism of al-Qaeda and others inside Saudi Arabia. They have been very successful.”
Protecting the Oil
Saudi Arabia, with 20 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, also set up in 2007 a 35,000-man specialized protection force to guard crude processing plants, oil fields and pipelines. That year, the Saudi government started a rehabilitation program to assimilate militants returning from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bin Laden, who studied management and economics at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, attracted supporters and money with his criticism of the West and the Al Saud family, which he denounced as corrupt and un- Islamic, as well as his advocacy of Islamic causes.
Under a pact dating back to 1744 between the Al Saud and Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, the kingdom maintains an austere brand of Islam, known as Wahhabism, in return for the Sunni Muslim hierarchy’s acceptance of the Al Saud monarchy.
‘Deviant Thought’
Bin Laden formed al-Qaeda with money from a family inheritance and preached an extreme interpretation of Islam.
Saudi Arabia hopes that his death will be a step toward dismantling al-Qaeda “as well as the elimination of deviant thought that stands behind it,” the Saudi news agency said, citing an unidentified official.
In 2004, Islamic militants struck an oil installation and stormed a housing city in the city of al-Khobar, killing 22 foreign workers. Saudi forces foiled an attempted attack in 2006 on the Abqaiq oil-processing center, which handles two-thirds of the kingdom’s supply.
In June 2010, al-Qaeda ordered the group’s “soldiers” to abduct Saudi princes, ministers and Christian residents of Saudi Arabia, according to a recording posted on an Islamist website. In August 2009, the group attempted to assassinate a top Saudi internal security official, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz.
There hasn’t been a terrorist attack against foreigners in the kingdom since February 2007 when four people, including two workers at Schneider Electric SA (SU), died in an attack by gunmen on a desert road.
To contact the reporters on this story: Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net; Donna Abu Nasr in Dubai at dabunasr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
Rate this Page