Militants Raise Stakes in Saudi Arabia With Back-to-Back Attacks (JMD quoted on Bloomberg)
July 6, 2016 — 5:00 AM SGT
People stand by an explosion site in Medina, Saudi Arabia on Monday,
July 4, 2016.
Photographer: Noor Punasiya/AP Photo
Militants escalated their campaign
against Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family with three suicide attacks in a
single day, in the biggest challenge to the kingdom’s internal security since
it crushed an al-Qaeda insurgency a decade ago.
With
no claims of responsibility, suspicion has fallen on Islamic State, which has
vowed to overthrow Gulf rulers they see as betraying Islam. One of the bombings
on Monday, near the Prophet’s Mosque in the holy city of Medina, targeted the
heart of the Al Saud family’s legitimacy -- its custodianship of Islam’s two
holiest shrines.
“The
Saudis are likely to react firmly, if not harshly, to the attacks,” James
Dorsey, a senior fellow in international studies at Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore, said in response to e-mailed questions. If
coordinated, the bombings “would demonstrate the ability of IS to strike
multiple times in the kingdom within a 24-hour framework and as such suggest
that the kingdom has a real problem.”
The
violence began in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, where a man identified by the
government as Pakistani-born blew himself up near the U.S. consulate. Hours
later on the opposite side of the country, two bombers struck a Shiite mosque
in the kingdom’s Eastern Province on the Persian Gulf. In Medina, Islam’s
second-holiest city after Mecca, four security personnel were killed outside
the Prophet’s Mosque.
The
attacks extended a two-week terrorism spree that has killed dozens in Iraq,
Turkey and Bangladesh. Kuwait bolstered its security around oil
installations on Monday after breaking up a network allegedly planning to
assault the Shiite community and a state facility.
Al-Qaeda Precedent
The
kingdom’s rulers faced a similar insurgency a decade ago when al-Qaeda
militants returning from battling U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq
redirected their fire against Saudi government targets and foreign workers.
Authorities crushed that threat by 2007, jailing many al-Qaeda supporters and
forcing others to flee to neighboring Yemen.
Today,
militants inspired by Islamic State, an al-Qaeda breakaway, are waging a
low-level campaign against police and other symbols of power. They’ve
also mounted assaults along the country’s religious fault lines with
attacks on minority Shiites.
“The
group is experimenting and trying to learn about the state’s weaknesses to
exploit them,” Firas Abi Ali, principal analyst at IHS Country Risk, said in an
e-mailed report. “It also suggests that the group’s ideology is sufficiently
popular in Saudi Arabia to obtain individuals eager to take their own lives.”
Economic Shakeup
The
violence has cast a pall over daily life, with office buildings and retail
centers installing metal detectors and bag scanners. A year ago, Saudi
authorities said they had arrested more than 400 Islamic State militants
accused of aiding attacks inside the kingdom, most of them Saudi nationals.
The
flare in violence in the world’s largest oil supplier comes as Deputy Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman leads the biggest economic shakeup in the kingdom’s
history with plans to reduce reliance on oil and increase foreign investment.
Economic growth in Saudi Arabia will slow to 1.5 percent this year, the lowest
level since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Monday’s
bombings didn’t affect oil prices. Brent crude dropped below $50 a barrel amid
signs that global oil supplies remain plentiful. Saudi Arabia’s stock market is
closed this week for the Islamic Eid holiday.
“If
these are one-off attacks the impact to the larger economy will be limited at
this point,” John Sfakianakis, Riyadh-based director of economic research at
the Gulf Research Center said in response to e-mailed questions. “If they are
generalized and recurrent in intensity, obviously there could be an impact at a
time when the economy is in a slowing growth cycle.”
During
Saudi Arabia’s battle with radical Sunni militants, attacks against religious
sites have been rare. In 1979, a group of gunmen briefly seized control of
the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Al-Qaeda linked militants a decade ago attacked the
kingdom’s largest oil processing facility in Abqaiq and targeted foreign
nationals, but not religious sites.
Islamic
State and its followers are attacking worshipers -- Sunni and Shiite. Last
year, asuicide bomber killed
about a dozen security personnel praying at mosque in the southwest province of
Asir.
No Red Lines
Islamic State, also known as ISIS,
“has long made it apparent that it has no moral red lines,’’ said Fahad Nazer,
who worked at the Saudi embassy in Washington and is now a political analyst at
JTG Inc. in Virginia. “It is cut from the same cloth as the militants who laid
siege to the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. That group had no compunction about
shedding Muslim blood in Islam’s most hallowed ground. Neither does ISIS.’’
The
attack in Medina may ultimately backfire, according to Paul Sullivan, a professor
of security studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
“Whoever
did this may be thinking to attack the economy of Saudi Arabia or rattle the
sense of security in the country, but you can be sure the Saudis and many
others will exact vengeance like nothing in the recent past,” Sullivan said.
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