DUBAI - Saudi Arabia's recent admission for the first time that al-Qaeda is active in the country - and poses a threat to the kingdom's security - is rife with domestic and international implications.
Apart from increased concerns about terrorist activity, this admission is likely, at the domestic level, to increase pressure from Washington on Riyadh to dilute the influence of religion in Saudi life. This will be a social and political challenge for the government.
At the diplomatic level, the presence of members of the US's most-wanted group in the kingdom will put another wedge in Saudi-US ties, already strained over the Middle East crisis and the denial of the use of Saudi bases for the US military attacks on Afghanistan last year.
In the first diplomatic exchanges, Riyadh has informed Washington that it would not allow foreign security personnel to interrogate the 13 al-Qaeda suspects, most of them Saudi nationals arrested "several months" ago, but made known to the rest of the world only last week. Though the United States has yet to make a formal request to question the detainees, such a demand is certain to come sooner or later, analysts say.
Dr Ali Ahmed al-Ghafli of the Sharjah University said, "Given that 15 of the 19 presumed September 11 hijackers carried Saudi passports, and Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, accused by Washington of masterminding the attacks, was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994, the United States will view the arrested suspects as potential sources of information about al-Qaeda's future activities.
"The United States is on high alert," he explained. "It is not just concerned about Saudi and American citizens' security, but is also worried about the danger of oil-supply control falling in the hands of extremist groups. The Saudi arrests will not be treated as routine. It is a special catch as far as Washington is concerned and the demand for questioning is only a matter of time," he added.
According to former Qatari justice minister Najeeb bin Mohammed al-Nuaimi, questioning is bound to happen. "If you are an Arab, you are a fighter [against the United States]. If you are an Arab, then you are a terrorist. If you are an Arab, you must be arrested and taken to Guantanamo," the US military base in Cuba.
Nuaimi is also a human-rights activist and founder and chairman of the defense committee for the detainees and prisoners of war in Guantanamo, where al-Qaeda and Taliban members are being questioned after being captured in Afghanistan.
After a recent seminar in Dubai, Nuaimi said Arab governments were not doing enough to solve the problem of the detainees. "Some governments are convinced that the prisoners are members of Islamic groups. If they were to establish contact and demand the release of these prisoners, they fear it may endanger their own political regimes," he added.
Saudi Arabia knew very well that the al-Qaeda arrests would be a source of serious embarrassment for it. But it was inevitable after Sudan's announcement that it had extradited to Riyadh an alleged al-Qaeda member accused of firing a missile at a US aircraft near the Prince Sultan air base near Riyadh, where most US troops deployed in the kingdom are stationed.
Newspapers had reported about two months ago that the Saudi security forces had found an empty launcher for a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile outside the air base, a fact confirmed by Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih a fortnight ago. Based in London and campaigning against the Saudi government, the website of the Movement for Islamic Reform said security forces had found at least five "incomplete pieces of weaponry" in various parts of the kingdom smuggled in from Yemen, including a missile tube near the air base, none of which had been fired but were meant as a warning from al-Qaeda.
Adding to Riyadh's embarrassment was Morocco's announcement last week of the arrest of three Saudi-born al-Qaeda members accused of plotting attacks in the country and on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ships in the Strait of Gibraltar. One of the Saudi men detained in Morocco even admitted meeting bin Laden and undergoing military training in Afghanistan, but denied having been asked to carry out any military attacks, Al Hayat Arabic newspaper reported.
All these developments forced Riyadh to admit both the arrests and the plans to bomb selected places in the kingdom. Subsequently, the government issued a stern warning through the media that all terror groups would be treated as "enemies of the kingdom" and be put down with an "iron hand".
"Saudis will, henceforth, take the war on terror more seriously. They will no longer ignore rising levels of al-Qaeda activity on their territory. Extremist elements will be seen not only as a source of social insecurity, but also as an ingredient for political instability," Ghafli said.
Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathizers in the kingdom appreciate both the puritan Islam that the former Afghan regime prescribed to and bin Laden's known hatred for the US military presence in the country and the Persian Gulf. Al Hayat also reported that a bomb was found under an American's car in Saudi Arabia, while a "suspicious object" was attached to a Briton's vehicle over the weekend, but both were removed without any incident.
The incidents follow a June 20 car bombing that killed a British banker in a Riyadh residential compound and a similar spate of bombings targeting Westerners, which the Saudi government blames on disputes in illicit trading in liquor.
(Inter Press Service)