Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it would make al Qaeda pay for suicide bombings that killed 34 people, including seven Americans, and would hunt down the masterminds with FBI help. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal promised to find those behind the bombings, the first major attack on U.S. targets since the United States waged war on Iraq to stamp out terrorism and oust Saddam Hussein. "Saudi Arabia is committed to... striking with an iron fist all who are tampering with the country's security," he told a news conference in Riyadh. "Whoever did this will regret it because they have unified this country's determination to extract this cancer (terrorism) and ensure that it doesn't return." A U.S. official said a team of FBI agents was waiting in Germany for Saudi approval to head to the kingdom. A high-level Saudi security official said the army was erecting checkpoints all over the vast desert kingdom. In a U.S. television interview, the U.S. Ambassador in Riyadh Robert Jordan criticized the Saudi authorities for not responding quickly to U.S. requests for more security. He also said the conservative Muslim kingdom where Saudis sympathize with bin Laden had a "long way to go" to ending terror attacks against foreigners.
Summary: Perhaps this is a case of Al Qaeda winning a "battle" on the way to losing the war. Let's hope so.
| If the Soddies actually switch gears and crack down like the Indonesians did, that might be so. If they do, in this case they'll take out a single structure that makes up a part to al-Qaeda. That's been the pattern in Pakistan, Indonesia, and to an extent in Russia/Chechnya — the Bad Guys have to stick the beturbanned little heads up to pull the op, and when they do the cops are able to track them down and either kill them or jug them. SA has the second problem of being involved in the finance and ideological end of things, though, and that's where the real progress is to be had. I don't think they have the nerve to crack down on the bin Laden family and their fellow travellers and on the holy men. Too much potential for overt opposition and loss of princely face. |
|