Fisk on What's Behind the Saudi Bombing

Published on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Riyadh's War on Terror Bites Back
by Robert Fisk

Osama bin Laden has an awful lot of friends in Saudi Arabia. In the mosque, among the disenchanted youth, among the security forces, even -- and this is what the West declines to discuss -- within the royal family. Saudi ambassadors routinely dismiss these facts as "unfounded" but Saturday's devastating attack in the capital, Riyadh, is part of a growing insurrection against bin Laden's enemies in the House of Saud.

Whether or not the bombers were members of the Saudi security forces -- they were certainly wearing Saudi military uniforms -- the Riyadh government's own version of the "war on terror" is now provoking bombings, gun battles and killings almost every day in the kingdom. The 11 dead were all apparently Muslims, most of them expatriate workers.

The enemies of the House of Saud want to make the kingdom ungovernable, just as the United States' enemies in Iraq want to make U.S. occupation ineffective. Iraqis are still the principal victims of the bombings in Baghdad, just as Saudis were the principal victims Saturday night.