WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- The Nov. 8th car bombing of a housing compound in Riyadh has damaged al-Qaida's legitimacy, possibly irreparably, in the "Arab Street." Seventeen people were killed, five of the victims were children and another 122 were injured. The majority of the victims were Egyptian or Lebanese.
An insurgency is almost by definition a battle for the hearts and minds of the people. Al-Qaida's credibility (its perceived ability to conduct successful operations) had already taken a beating with the thrashing it received in Afghanistan. Now, its legitimacy (the group's perceived righteousness) has been seriously undermined among Muslims.
Until now, the view of the Saudi people toward al-Qaida could best be described as ambivalent. While most Saudi citizens were troubled by its methods, many had sympathy for its stated grievances.
The level of actual Saudi popular support for al-Qaida has been exaggerated in the media, but it is clear that there was some popular support.
Some Saudis, concerned about encroachment of Western influence on the Islamic world, supported al-Qaida as a force willing not only to oppose that encroachment, but to take the fight to the West.
Others, chafing under the authoritarian rule of the Saud Dynasty, welcomed al-Qaida as an agent of reform. Al-Qaida seeks the overthrow of the Saud Dynasty.
The victims of this bombing were all either Arabs or Muslims, none of whom had anything to do with the ruling elite. It is therefore impossible for al-Qaida to claim that this attack was motivated either by hatred of the West or of the ruling family.
To the average Arab, the bombing appears as exactly what it was, killing for killing's sake.
There has been speculation that the al-Muhaya compound was attacked because of its permissiveness. Compounds like al-Muhaya provide residents with a refuge from the strict, legally enforced behavior codes of the Wahhabi sect prevalent in the kingdom. Liquor is available (though not legal) in al-Muhaya, and there is public swimming, where men and women mix.
It is possible that this played a role in the selection of this target, but the main reason al-Muhaya was attacked was that it was lightly defended. Before the attack, there was no reason to believe that al-Qaida would target a compound full of Muslims, so security there was not as tight as it was in areas where Westerners lived.
This is a common strategic mistake that has been made by planners a lot smarter than those who run al-Qaida. Often, military planners will yield to the temptation to select targets based on the relative ease with which they can be attacked rather than mounting more difficult or costly operations which would be more likely to bring them closer to their strategic objective.
Those planning terrorist attacks often fall into the same trap, as al-Qaida did here. Al-Muhaya was a soft target, and the attack grabbed headlines, but this operation did nothing to bring al-Qaida any closer to any of its goals. In fact, it set al-Qaida back by alienating many who might otherwise been sympathetic to its cause.
Another consequence of the attack was that it will cause the Saudi government to adopt a more aggressive approach to dealing with al-Qaida. King Fahd has vowed to crush this insurgency "with an iron fist."
Until now, Saudi government participation in the fight against al-Qaida could best be described as reluctant. When pressured by the Bush administration, the government has cooperated with U.S. authorities and made arrests.
Even in the arrests there was less than met the eye, however. Most of those arrested were Shiite dissidents who had nothing to do with al-Qaida (al-Qaida is violently anti Shiite in addition to being violently anti-West).
In general, the Saudi government has been content to "let sleeping dogs lie" where al-Qaida was concerned.
So long as al-Qaida was focused on spreading terror in the West, it was too busy to pursue its other goal -- the overthrow of Saudi Arabia's ruling dynasty. The ruling elite was therefore hesitant to take actions that might cause al-Qaida to redirect its focus.
Actually, that was a considerable shift from the government's previous policy, which could best be described as appeasement. Saudi Arabia has long been a supporter of radical Islamic groups.
Some analysts have attributed the Saudi government's support for radical Islamic groups to a pursuit of an image as a defender of the faith.
There is a more cynical explanation for this support.
Many analysts believe that the government was essentially "buying off" potential troublemakers. Radicals and fundamentalist organizations have received generous support with the understanding that they would operate in other countries and not in Saudi Arabia.
Many of the beneficiaries of that largesse are now biting the hand that once fed them, and the government will have to do something about it.
This bombing has knocked the ruling elite off of the tightrope between Washington and radical Islam it had previously attempted to walk. It is now clear that while the ruling elite may not be fighting for its life, yet, it is definitely fighting for its credibility. The government must now demonstrate that it can provide an acceptable level of security for the Saudi people against such outrages.
In short, the gloves are now off, and the Saudi government can be expected to go after al-Qaida with every means at its disposal.
This is just speculation, but it is possible that the planners of the bombing intended to force the government's hand in just this way. The bombing may have been a means to bait the Saudi government to cracking down on extremists. Then, it could be portrayed as anti-Muslim, and would suffer in the eyes of the Saudi public. If so, the planners didn't think things through.
The Saudi public, unaccustomed to car bombings and gun battles in the streets, would welcome a crackdown.
The al-Muhaya bombing has shattered some long-held Saudi illusions about the nature of al-Qaida. Both the government and the people now have a pretty good idea of what that organization is about and they don't like what they see.
The bombing was a self-inflicted wound that will weaken a terrorist organization that was already on the ropes. It wasn't a fatal wound, but as al-Qaida's leadership will soon discover, it was deep and will leave a permanent scar.
(Thomas Houlahan is the director of the Military Assessment Program of the William R. Nelson Institute at James Madison University.)
