http://www.saudidebate.com/index.php?option=com_content
<http://www.saudidebate.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=742&It
emid=119> &task=view&id=742&Itemid=119
Saudi anti-terror campaign highlights conundrum facing government as threats
continue 
 
Terrorism is becoming a fact of life, like diabetes or high blood pressure.
You cannot cure it; the best you can do is to learn how to live with it.
Every time you look at the newspaper or turn on the TV to watch the news you
expect to hear a new story about a foiled attack somewhere or other. It is
becoming a persistent theme in news broadcasts, like the weather or the
sport, the only variable to catch the attention being the size of the
attempted attack and whether it succeeded or failed.

In Saudi Arabia in particular, there is a heightened sense of alarm, which
is felt wherever you go. All government and financial institutions, hotels
and high profile buildings are barricaded and every car is inspected before
being allowed to enter. Check points are posted at the entrance of every
major road or highway, where passengers have to stop and present their
identification cards.

Saudis have become used and immune to such daily inconveniences because they
are quite aware of the great risks involved if such precautions were to be
relaxed.

But on the morning of 18 April the country woke to the stunning news that
the Interior Ministry had arrested 172 alleged terrorists, who had formed
seven terror cells that were planning to wreak havoc in the kingdom. Viewing
their destructive mission as holy jihaad, all 172 had pledged allegiance to
their leader at the sanctuary of the holy Ka'bah in Mecca.

There was a big sigh of relief because the group was rounded up only three
days before they were supposed to strike. But what was even more astonishing
than the large number of the terrorists was the large amount of cash they
had on their hands - totaling more than $6 million - and the very advanced
and expensive equipment and weaponry they had in their possession, which
they had intended to use in their attacks.

Where did they get all this money? The suspicion was raised that they might
have received external help, since not all their money was in Saudi Riyals.
In addition to foreign currencies in their possession, they had been trained
outside the kingdom to fly, in order to use airplanes in their attacks.
Their plan was to launch an attack much more spectacular than that of 9/11.

As this latest group was being rounded up and interrogated, Saudi TV on 14
May paraded five youths who had allegedly provided logistical support to the
terror group, who had been caught on 24 February while they were attempting
to blow up oil installations at Abqaiq and Ras Tannurah. 

The group became know as the 'petroleum cell', because, according to their
confessions, they had planned to blow up oil refineries in the Eastern
Province of Saudi Arabia in order to stop the flow of energy and cripple the
global economy. By so doing, they were hoping to drag the United States into
Saudi Arabia by encouraging it to send troops to protect the oil wells. They
would thus have been able to engage US troops in guerilla warfare in the
Kingdom, as they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The aim would be to
dissipate and exhaust US power, while in the meantime embarrassing the Saudi
regime and undermining its religious legitimacy.

The information gleaned from members of the 'petroleum cell' is rather
astounding.
Before the group could put their plan into action, they had to get a fatwa
from Osama bin Laden, sanctioning the attack. It took them seven months to
get obtain this fatwa - proving both that Bin Laden is still alive, and that
he is well-hidden, probably among the mountains along the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Bin Laden's presence there has been confirmed
by the dissident Afghani leader and ex-prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The long time it took to communicate the fatwa shows that the hiding place
of Bin Laden is hard to find and difficult to get to. But this also shows
that he is still in full control of al-Qa'ida operations, at least in the
Arabian Peninsula.

The four terrorists of the 'petroleum cell', who were dressed like Aramco
employees and drove two cars disguised as Aramco vehicles, managed to pass
through the main gate to the oil-processing plant at Abqaiq. When they
refused to stop, security forces fired at them and killed the occupants
instantly. Their cars were blown up, causing a minor fire in one of the
supply pipes which was quickly extinguished. 

Had their mission succeeded, it would have cut international oil supply by
almost 50%. In response to the foiled attack, oil prices rose 3.4% to $62.60
per barrel. The Abqaiq refinery is one of the largest in the world. It
processes nearly five million barrels of oil daily, which amounts to nearly
two-thirds of Saudi oil production.

What gives credence to the confessions of these terrorists is the fact that
they themselves used video cameras and sound equipment to record every step
of their training and preparation for their attack - in the hope that once
the operation had succeeded, their films would be broadcast on the Internet.
Instead, Saudi TV broadcast the films - to show the public the diabolical
aims of the group.

Members of the 'petroleum cell', who were enlisted by al-Qa'ida to blow up
the oil installations, were essentially illiterate teenagers who had no idea
about the scale of the damage and threat to human life their plans entailed.
They did not know how much explosive was needed to blow up the refinery, and
were planning to use two tones - sufficient to destroy an area 20kms square;
in addition, the explosion of would have killed tens of thousands of people,
and released poisonous gases and highly toxic pollution. According to the
arrested logistics team, this operation was supposed to have coincided with
operations in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

When the terrorists were confronted with this assessment of the scale of
damage they would have caused, their response was that it barely mattered to
them, as long as their mission succeeded: the aim was to cause the maximum
damage and attract the maximum media attention. 

At the time of their confessions the terrorists were so brainwashed by
al-Qa'ida's ideology that they thought they were serving the cause of Islam
through their horrendous acts, and that what they were doing was an act of
holy jihaad that would guarantee each of them a dozen beautiful huries in
paradise.

For its part, the government broadcast the confessions of the five
'petroleum cell' terrorists on national radio and TV, and had them published
in all local newspapers, with several objectives in mind.

One of these objectives was to demonstrate to the public the senselessness
and godlessness of these terrorists' actions and to thus diminish any public
sympathy or support for their cause. The other objective was to reassure the
whole world that the oil installations in Saudi Arabia are in safe hands.
The next day the local newspapers published several articles featuring all
the fool-proof safety precautions and maintenance procedures practiced by
Aramco and the Saudi government to protect refineries from any terrorist
attack or accidental technical malfunction and to ensure the uninterrupted
flow of oil.

One hundred and seventy-two terrorists in one catch is a very large number.
Perhaps more alarming than their existence is the fact that they were caught
barely three days before they were to carry out their massacre.

As for the 'petroleum cell', they nearly succeeded in carrying out their
mission, having been killed only after they had passed the main gate to the
Abqaiq refinery.

No wonder Saudis are getting rather jittery. 

Newspaper columnists, bloggers and writers on websites are beginning to
question the position of both the Islamists and some prominent religious
leaders and official clerics who - on their websites and in various
publications - are always quick and ready to expose and condemn any
perceived injustice committed against Islamic movements and jihaadis all
over the world: yet they remain completely silent when terrorists commit
their heinous crimes and strike in Saudi Arabia - the most Islamic of all
Muslim countries. Some even go to the extent of interpreting such silence to
mean endorsement and support.
Others are also raising serious questions regarding the way terrorists are
pampered by what is called the munasahah committee.

This committee holds meetings with arrested terrorists to engage with them
in a religious dialogue - to prove to them that they were following an
errant path. With sweet words they try to bring them back to the fold of the
true faithful. Whoever among them declares his tawbah - his penitence - will
be released from jail and helped with finance, housing and the search for a
well-paid job.

But many so-called repentant souls revert to 'business as usual' as soon as
they came out of jail. A glaring example of this is Abdulaziz al-Muqrin who
was arrested for committing several acts of terror and was sentenced to four
years in jail but was released after two years as a reward for memorizing
the entire Quran while in jail. The last act of al-Muqrin before he was shot
to death by Saudi police in June 2004 was the beheading of the American
captive Paul Johnson.

Such lenient treatment of arrested terrorists by the Saudi authorities would
have been commendable had it been prompted by respect for human rights. But
many ask why such leniency is not extended to liberal voices and reformist
writers who operate in the open through peaceful means.

Some see the crux of the problem as lying in the Saudi regime basing its
political legitimacy on religious grounds: it is a premise that places the
regime on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand it cannot tolerate
terrorists, while on the other it cannot take stern measures against
fundamentalists and Islamists whose ideologies and sermons promote terror,
because to do so would make the government appear anti-Islamic. Evidently,
to weaken the role of religion in Saudi society is to weaken the ideological
basis of the regime and put its legitimacy in question.



 



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