Editorial: Stand firm in Saudi

Al Qaeda's latest, and bloodiest, attack in Saudi Arabia has prompted the United States to urge its citizens to leave the kingdom. The reaction is as regrettable as it is timid. It pays no heed to the resolve and efficiency of the Saudi anti-terrorist response at Khobar. More fundamentally, Washington, even if unwittingly, is fuelling al Qaeda's belief that the Western world has a soft underbelly; that it will cut and run when the fire is at its hottest. Fortunately, other Western nations have presented the terrorists with no such succour. Britain, for example, is not asking its citizens to leave, even though its embassy in Riyadh believes further attacks are imminent.

It is vital to the smooth functioning of the world economy that the six million expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia remain there. Essentially, they run the country's oil industry and other sectors. An exodus would lead to disruptions to oil supplies in months, if not weeks. With prices already soaring, that is a dire scenario.

This is one reason the kingdom is such a magnet for terrorist activity. The Khobar assault was the second in less than a month on the Saudi oil industry. Al Qadea's ultimate ambition, however, is to overthrow the House of Saud and replace it with Muslim fundamentalist rule. According to its Saudi chief, the ruling family is guilty of opening the country to the United States and "providing America with oil at the cheapest prices according to their master's wishes". Attacks on the oil industry are the obvious means of destabilising the country in preparation for a seizure of power.

The House of Saud is riven by internal dissension, widely disliked, and undoubtedly fragile. But under its rule Saudi Arabia has prospered enormously from contact with the West. Many of its best and brightest have been educated in the US and could be expected to favour the forces of modernisation over those of fundamentalism. Somewhat paradoxically, they live in a country that continues to expound an austere version of Islam. This has always been a form of protection for the House of Saud. Whether it is now serving to aid and abet extremist violence has become a subject of debate in the wake of al Qaeda's activity.

Such discussion is, in fact, unprecedented in Saudi Arabia. Its very occurrence represents something of a coming of age, as well as reflecting Saudis' misgivings about their state and where terrorism might lead. What, for example, would happen if expatriate workers were to take up the US Ambassador's recommendation and flee the country? Clearly, the consequences would be unpalatable to many of a people now in the front line of the war against terrorism.

Al Qaeda is always probing for weak points. It knows the White House is distracted by events in Iraq. There, the US is promising to stay the distance. America cannot afford to be anything other than equally tough-minded in Saudi Arabia.