Terrorism by 'holy warriors' has its roots in social deprivation and local US alliances, writes MICHAEL JANSEN
AL-QAEDA IN the Arabian Peninsula, the organisation blamed for the parcel bomb plot discovered last week, has in Saudi Arabia and Yemen in particular found fertile ground for winning recruits among poorly educated, unemployed youth, alienated by events in the region and the wider Muslim world.
Violent actions by a threatening minority of “holy warriors” is regarded by some intelligence analysts as “blow-back” for policies pursued by Saudi Arabia and its ally, the US, over many decades.
Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of the dynasty, gained power in the Arabian Peninsula with the backing of tribesmen adhering to the narrow, puritanical Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. The Wahhabi religious establishment and its practices were imposed on the kingdom and its citizens. While oil revenues enabled Saudi Arabia to build a contemporary physical infrastructure, attempts to modernise the country’s social and cultural fabric, particularly through education, were vehemently opposed by the Wahhabis, creating tensions within Saudi society, and disorienting its citizens.
The country’s rulers opposed Egypt’s 1952 military coup, which led to the overthrow of kings in Iraq, Yemen and Libya, and the creation of the secular pan-Arab republican movement popular in the region from the mid-1950s.
To counter the Arab nationalists, the Saudis – with the encouragement of the US – provided financial and political support to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the parent of Arab parties rooted in political Islam. These parties gave birth to violent organisations such as al-Qaeda and its offshoots.
From the point of view of Saudi clerics and citizens, the US tie was problematic because Washington developed an increasingly close connection with Israel, seen by Arabs as their main enemy. The US-directed, Saudi-funded war against the Soviets in Afghanistan (1979-1989) provided both a distraction and an opportunity for Saudi and other Arab militants to fight against a common, secular, “godless” enemy.
When the war ended, returned Yemeni veterans and pro-Saudi Wahhabi elements were co-opted by the government in the struggle against leftist separatists in the south.
Consequently, these groups became influential players on the political scene, making it difficult for the government to crack down on them.
Other veterans raised the banner of Islam and took up arms against their rulers. The founder of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi of Yemeni extraction, was the most notorious of these rebels with a cause. He sought to topple the Saudi monarchy, expel the foreign presence from the holy soil of Arabia and liberate Jerusalem. The 2001 attack on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda projected the movement on to the world stage.
Instead of trying to deal with the underlying causes of dis- affection among Muslims – corrupt regimes, poverty, unemployment, and frustration over Palestine – the US, backed by Saudi Arabia, waged war in Afghanistan, deepening Muslim anger. The 2003 US war in Iraq which resulted in the rise of a Shia-Kurd regime in Baghdad (the capital of the medieval Sunni Arab empire) and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-2009 exacerbated anti-US and, by association, anti-Saudi sentiments among Sunnis. Al-Qaeda struck back in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, North Africa and elsewhere.
Although the parcel plot failed, the bombmakers of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula can be expected to try again until the movement’s adherents are captured or killed, al-Qaeda is uprooted, and young Arabs are provided with education, employment, and governments that are accountable to their citizens.