Arábia Saudita e os ataques terroristas

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Arábia Saudita e os ataques terroristas
« em: Junho 03, 2004, 11:33:16 pm »
Los Angeles Times
Thursday, June 3, 2004
Commentary

A Bleeding Saudi Arabia Is Asking: Just What Do the Terrorists Want?

The kingdom's silent majority must stand against radicals and for reform.

By Jamal Khashoggi
Jamal Khashoggi is media advisor to the Saudi ambassador in Britain and former editor of the Saudi newspaper Alwatan. This essay appears here by special arrangement with the Financial Times.

Every time terrorists strike in Saudi Arabia, I spend hours navigating extremist Islamic websites searching for a logical motive behind their radical acts. These sites brim with the hatred and anger that characterize those who support the extremist cause within the kingdom. These are enemies of change and modernization, and it is critical that the reform process in Saudi Arabia does not yield to their demands.

To justify the targeting of non-Muslims, extremist militants in the kingdom use the fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden in 1996, declaring a jihad against Americans and British civilians worldwide. Westerners, from this perspective, are easy targets. The motive in recent attacks in Yanbu and Khobar, which killed almost 30 people — mainly foreigners — was clear.

But why would extremists target a facility that provides a basic service to Saudi citizens? The suicide bomber who blew up the traffic police headquarters in Riyadh last month, a place normally crowded with hundreds of civilians, no doubt knew that many locals would suffer.

Interestingly, opinions posted on the favorite website of Alsaha, one of the most hard-line Saudi activist groups, mostly condemned the crime. But on the website of Islamic Movement for Reform, the London-based Saudi opposition movement, a man calling himself Abu al-Harith al-Masri justified the attack, claiming the traffic police blocked roads and therefore enabled police to pursue the moujahedeen.

Such explanations are truly frightening. By this logic, Saudi citizens everywhere become targets. Blowing up the Saudi passport department could be justified because it provided logistical support in the fight against the moujahedeen. A strike against a newspaper or television station could be justified with assertions that it was an instrument of anti-moujahedeen propaganda.

The extremists in Saudi Arabia have attained levels of inhumanity seen only in the most ferocious of extremist movements. But they remain a minority among the Saudi people. Now that they have widened their targets to include Saudi citizens, they will find it extremely difficult to enlist more public support. So again I wonder: What do these attackers want?

We know they have close ties to Al Qaeda. No one, however, has determined whether they receive orders directly from Bin Laden. So far, the only clear demand from the militants has been for the departure of American forces from the kingdom, an early obsession of Bin Laden's. But U.S. forces withdrew last year after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. So what are these groups fighting for now?

We know they consider the Saudi government to have strayed from Islam, not least because of its ties with the U.S. and Britain. They take issue with the government's enactment of laws outside the Islamic Sharia code. They oppose the freedom given to Saudi banks to deal in what they see as riba, interest-based financing that is prohibited under Islam. They complain bitterly about official inaction over the sale of such banned items as satellite dishes. Yet there is little indication that these groups are aiming for the overthrow of the government and the establishment of a "pure" Islamic state.

Does this mean their terrorist activities are as aimless as they appear? Or are such acts simply a desperate expression of their inability to influence the government's actions, an attempt to thwart the government's modernization and reform plans? These groups regard ideas such as elections, a greater role for women in the workplace and other reforms as contrary to Islamic teachings.

They are not alone in opposing what they see as a dangerous slide away from Islam. There is a sizable number of strong-willed people inside Saudi Arabia who also oppose the reform process but who shun violence as a means of expressing those views. These recent attacks may simply be a violent manifestation of this more widespread opposition to political and social reform. Could this, then, explain the government's reluctance to step up the pace of reform at a time when more enlightened circles of Saudi society want an acceleration in social and political change?

In the end, reform is not a choice for Saudi Arabia — it is the kingdom's future. Though the silent majority may be willing to take a passively cooperative stand with the government against terrorism and extremism, there is also a need for action to develop a realistic plan to build a culture of tolerance and progress in Saudi society.

Washington Post
Thursday, June 3, 2004
Commentary
"Esta é a ditosa pátria minha amada."