Al Qaeda defies Saudi crackdown to strike US target

A video grab image shows smoke rising from the US Consulate in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah on Monday. Picture / Reuters

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Eighteen months after Saudi Arabia launched a crackdown on al Qaeda, defiant militants showed they still posed a threat with a strike against a symbol of arch-enemy the United States.

Weakened by the unprecedented security clampdown, without most of their battle-hardened veterans and stripped of leadership, al Qaeda gunmen still pierced what should have been the impenetrable defences of the US Consulate in Jeddah.

A statement in the name of al Qaeda's Saudi wing said the fighters "breached the bastion of the Crusaders" and vowed the network would continue its campaign to expel non-Muslims from the birthplace of Islam.

"This was a calculated show of defiance," said Kevin Rosser, terrorism expert at the London-based consultancy Control Risks Group. "The message is: 'We have suffered setbacks but we are not defeated and we are brave enough to strike at the most fortified of targets in broad daylight'. They want to show they are still potent, determined and undeterred".

Officials say the attackers followed an official consulate car into the complex, firing guns and throwing grenades at guards to force entry. No US diplomats were killed but the gunmen burnt the US flag and set fire to buildings.

Al Qaeda has launched a series of attacks since May last year in Saudi Arabia aimed at forcing non-Muslims out of the country and ultimately overthrowing the monarchy, a deeply conservative dynasty and key Western ally.

The attacks have rattled world oil markets, anxious about stable supplies from the world's biggest crude exporter.

Al Qaeda has struck with suicide bombings against expatriate housing compounds and a state security building in Riyadh. Its most recent major attack took place in the oil city of al-Khobar in May when 22 people were killed by gunmen.

Authorities hit back with a nationwide campaign to flush out the militants. At least three local al Qaeda leaders have been killed since May 2003 and most of the high-profile figures are either dead or in jail.

De facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah declared in July the militants had been defeated. But analysts say a second level of fighters, lacking combat experience and training in al Qaeda's Afghan camps but fired by the same anti-US zeal, could be emerging in the kingdom.

"The government is beginning to get control over the organised network of (al Qaeda) sanctuaries, funding and weapons, but there is a threat from vigilantes who will try to mirror the first wave," Rosser said.

Last year's US-led invasion of neighbouring Iraq enraged many Saudis and the militants have made explicit links to Iraq to exploit that anger, labelling Monday's operation the "blessed Falluja attack" in reference to the city seen as a symbol of Arab resistance to US military might.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terror analyst at Britain's St Andrew's University, said popular anger against the United States could fuel further attacks.

"The Saudis have been successful in eliminating the high profile people," he said. "But under the surface there's a lot of dry grass. In Jeddah that dry grass has ignited and there are likely to be more moves against US interests."

The Red Sea city had until Monday escaped a major attack, although two small bombs exploded in cars outside US and British-linked banks in Jeddah in September and a US consulate car was fired on.

Expatriates in Saudi Arabia say militants were monitoring a Western compound in al-Khobar last month to test the response of security guards, in a sign further attacks could be planned.

"Al Qaeda and their ideological backers are still alive in Saudi Arabia," said Mai Yamani, research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

Yamani said security measures alone could not address the threat posed by militants who were drawn to violence by an education system which "equips them to become jihadis" (holy warriors) and by Wahhabi religious scholars who call for jihad against US forces in Iraq.

"The only long term solution is genuine reform," Yamani said. "But the government seems to fear the liberal moderates who are asking for reform more than it fears the radical religious groups."

Three prominent reform activists who called for Saudi Arabia's absolute monarchy to move to a more constitutional model have been in jail since March. Six confessed militants who surrendered to authorities under a government amnesty in July have since been released.

- REUTERS