US hawks suspect Saudis of supping with Islamic militants

By RUPERT CORNWELL in WASHINGTON

The devastating suicide bombings in Riyadh were yesterday putting even more pressure on Saudi/United States relations, already bedevilled by charges that the world's pivotal oil producer is a breeding ground of Islamic terrorism.

The attacks come, moreover, at an especially delicate moment as an American occupying Army struggles to impose order in Iraq, and the US prepares to withdraw most of its military forces stationed in Saudi Arabia, where their presence has been a source of resentment.

Within hours, the FBI dispatched an assessment team to the Saudi capital. But there was no guarantee they would not face the same subtle obstacles thrown in the way of investigators of attacks on US targets in the past, notably the 1996 truck-bombing at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran and an attack on a US-run military facility in Riyadh a year earlier. A total of 24 Americans died in the two incidents.

In both cases, US officials felt they were not allowed full access to suspects, and the lack of co-operation raised the first suspicions - hotly denied by the Saudis - of complicities between elements of the state, especially its intelligence services, and militant Islamic groups.

The presence of "infidel" American troops and businesses in Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam's most sacred places, has long been one of the main grievances of Osama bin Laden in his efforts to stir up a holy war against the West.

Riyadh claims to be a close ally in the campaign against terrorism, but many an official in Washington privately wonders just how friendly the kingdom is, torn between its role as the world's largest oil producer, and the pressure on its ruling family from the country's clergy.

The conflicting pressures, these officials believe, has led Saudi rulers to cut a tacit deal with the fundamentalists, including the turning of a blind eye to terrorist links.

Such suspicions are particularly strong among neo-conservatives, in their strongholds at the Pentagon and the Vice-President's office.

But the attacks were aimed at civilian targets, among the 40,000 Americans who live and work in Saudi Arabia.

They suggest that al Qaeda will not be easily persuaded. They are also a sign that in the wake of the Iraq campaign, bitterly opposed by most Arab populations, al Qaeda may have an even larger reservoir of Saudi sympathy on which to draw.

For some analysts, Tuesday's bombings underline how Saudi Arabia, strategically and economically crucial to the West, may be a time-bomb waiting to explode.

Society is in a tug of war between Islamic tradition and Western modernism. Oil revenue is stagnating, corruption is rife, and unemployment is soaring among a youthful population.

- INDEPENDENT