New Violence, Old Problem

The last two terrorist attacks on Saudi Arabian soil left over two dozen people dead, including 25 foreigners. In both attacks, the corpse of a Westerner was dragged behind a car in apparent celebration. As gruesome as this sounds, writes Neil MacFarquhar, it is only a symptom of the times in Saudi Arabia. The ruling House of Saud, he says, officially maintains that the terrorists responsible for such attacks are not Saudis, but rather foreign extremists. But at least one prominent Saudi – Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the country's ambassador to the US – disagrees. "It has nothing to do with America or Israel or the Christians or Jews," Prince Bandar wrote recently. "So let us stop these meaningless justifications for what those criminals are doing and let us stop blaming others while the problem comes from within us." MacFarquhar writes that the Prince may be on to something, citing a fatwa posted on a Saudi religious website in which a sheik outlines the circumstances under which the corpses of 'infidels' can be mutilated. In few other places – even in Iraq's anti-American city of Falluja, MacFarquhar argues – can Islamic clerics come out as such strong advocates of violence against non-Muslims. Official tolerance of extremists – if not extremist actions – the article concludes, threatens to pit radicals against reformers and plunge the country into civil war. – YaleGlobal