Terror in Jeddah

摘要

Last month, the Saudi government boasted that it had all but defeated the local Islamist terrorists. This week, al-Qaeda stormed the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second city, killing five people. Is Osama bin Laden gaining the upper hand in his homeland? No. Since May 2003, when a series of bombings in Riyadh made plain the seriousness of the jihadist threat, the Saudi state has fought back. The past six months have been particularly hard on the militants, who had failed to score any "raids", as they call them, since they killed 22 people in a rampage on May 29th. Of the 26 most-wanted men named last year, only seven remain at large. Dozens of others have also been taken out of action. Nor was the Jeddah attack, for all its boldness, very impressive. Four of the five assailants died, and none penetrated the hardened chancellery within the consular compound. Few Saudis believe such violence will achieve its proclaimed goal of ridding Arabia of "polytheists".