Thomas Hegghammer
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HEGGHAMMER: TERRORIST RECRUITMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA TERRORIST RECRUITMENT AND RADICALIZATION IN SAUDI ARABIA Thomas Hegghammer Mr. Hegghammer ([email protected]) is a research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment in Oslo and a Ph.D. candidate at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. He is grateful to Brynjar Lia, Stéphane Lacroix and Steffen Hertog for useful comments to early drafts of this article. n studies of the contemporary Middle remained unanswered: Exactly who in East, Saudi Arabia is often seen as a Saudi Arabia become militants and why? source of Muslim extremism. Much The current article addresses this Ihas been written — rightly and question through an analysis of biographies wrongly — about Saudi Arabia’s alleged of Saudi militants. The study focuses on role as an exporter of recruits, ideology and the individuals who took part in the terror- money to violent Islamist groups such as ism campaign that started in Saudi Arabia al-Qaeda. Yet there is a remarkable in May 2003.2 I will seek to answer two paucity of detailed studies of the Islamist questions: First, who joined the organization community within Saudi Arabia itself, and known as al-Qaeda on the Arabian Penin- the prevailing view of Saudi Islamism is sula [QAP] and why? Second, to what rather monolithic. There have notably been extent does Saudi Arabia present specifici- few attempts at understanding the dynam- ties in terms of radicalization and recruit- ics and patterns of radicalization inside ment to Islamist militancy? Saudi Arabia.1 In the literature on militant One of the main objectives of this Islamism, there is even a tendency to fall article is to fill an empirical gap in the back on tautological arguments, whereby growing corpus of profile-based studies of the extremism of Saudi militants is ex- Islamist militancy.3 The individual-oriented plained by the fact that they are Saudi. approach to terrorism studies, which fell Such analyses rely on the assumption that out of fashion in the mid-1980s, has there is something about the religiosity in regained popularity since 9/11 and has Saudi society or the Wahhabi religious yielded significant new insights into the tradition which predisposes Saudis for causes of Islamist violence. However, most extremism. However, this does not explain of the empirical data for the existing why some Saudis become militants while studies are drawn from countries or others do not. Key questions have thus regions other than Saudi Arabia.4 This © 2006, The Author Journal Compilation © 2006, Middle East Policy Council 39 MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XIII, NO. 4, WINTER 2006 article analyses profiles of militants drawn conflict and information warfare. Another exclusively from the Saudi context, which problem is that the militants portrayed here will hopefully enable us to validate existing may not be entirely representative of all the hypotheses and make comparisons with followers of the QAP. While the exact total data from other regions. number of QAP-related individuals is The source data for this analysis is a unclear, we know that Saudi authorities collection of 240 biographies of Saudi have arrested between 500 and 1000 militants, which I compiled over a two-year suspected militants, while around 150 have period from a broad range of primary and been killed in attacks and shootouts.7 secondary sources, mostly in Arabic. In Having said this, our core sample of 70 is addition to international and local press likely to include most of the prominent and reports, I have made extensive use of the active members of the QAP. These are, militants’ own publications, which contain a after all, the most relevant for understand- wealth of biographical information.5 ing the organization. Moreover, during a series of research trips The analysis will proceed in five steps. to Saudi Arabia in 2004 and 2005, I con- First, we shall provide a brief outline of the ducted numerous interviews with former historical origins and context of the terror- radicals as well as families and acquaintan- ism campaign launched in Saudi Arabia in ces of militants. My sample includes only 2003. Second, we shall present basic people who have been directly or indirectly statistics about the militants and show their involved in militancy inside Saudi Arabia distribution according to criteria such as since 2002. I have included the names of socioeconomic background and geographi- all individuals who are mentioned in the cal and tribal origin. In the third part, we jihadist publications, as well as all those shall look at why and how so many of the mentioned in press reports in connection QAP militants had gone to Afghanistan with attacks, shootouts or arrests. As with between 1999 and 2001. In the fourth most databases of this kind, the profiles do section, we shall examine why and how the not always contain the same type or militants joined the QAP between 2002 and amount of information. I shall therefore 2005. Fifth and finally, we shall look at our distinguish between, on the one hand, a findings in a comparative perspective and core group of 70 individuals whose biogra- identify differences and similarities with phies are relatively extensive, and, on the radicalization patterns in other countries other hand, the entire sample of 240.6 and regions. There are undoubtedly certain prob- lems with this material. For a start, the AL-QAEDA ON THE ARABIAN information may not always be one hun- PENINSULA dred percent accurate. Regrettably, I have The roots of the organization known as not had the chance to interview the mili- al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula go back tants themselves, because most are dead to the late 1990s. After the standoff or in high-security prisons. Most biographi- between the Saudi government and the cal details come from jihadist publications moderate Islamist opposition in the early and Interior Ministry statements that were 1990s and the bombings in Riyadh (1995) produced in a context of intense mutual and Khobar (1996), which led to heavy 40 HEGGHAMMER: TERRORIST RECRUITMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA government crackdowns, the Saudi Islamist sophisticated than it really was. The scene had entered a quiet phase.8 How- terrorist campaign culminated in the spring ever, in about 1999, the jihadist community of 2004, when the militants conducted a in Saudi Arabia underwent a renaissance. series of simple yet spectacular terrorist A new generation of Saudis went to operations against Western targets across Afghanistan, this time not to fight the the country. However, in the summer of Russians, but to join Osama bin Ladin’s 2004, Saudi police dismantled the QAP by training camps.9 Between 1999 and 2001, arresting the main operational leader, Abd Bin Ladin also established an elaborate al-Aziz al-Muqrin, in June, by raiding the recruitment infrastructure in Saudi Arabia organization’s headquarters in Riyadh in through the intermediary of local represen- July, and by capturing Faris al-Zahrani, one tatives such as Yusuf al-Ayiri.10 In early of their top ideologues, in August. The 2002, after the U.S.-led invasion of Af- QAP would never quite recover from these ghanistan and the fall of the Taliban, setbacks. It has remained very weak ever several hundred Saudis returned from since, although sporadic attacks have Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, some of them occurred. Proof of this weakness is that, carrying specific orders from Bin Ladin to between December 2004 and October start preparing for a terrorist campaign in 2006, the QAP did not successfully ex- the kingdom.11 In 2002, Yusuf al-Ayiri built ecute any major attacks.15 However, the an organization and made extensive scale of some foiled operations, such as the military preparations for a future cam- attempted attack on the Abqaiq oil refinery paign.12 Al-Ayiri and his lieutenants in February 2006, have raised concerns of amassed weapons light and heavy and a revival of the QAP.16 rented safe houses across the country. It is important to note that the declared They also set up training camps in the purpose of the QAP campaign from the desert and indoor training facilities in the beginning was not primarily to topple the cities.13 At some point in the spring of regime but to end what the militants 2003, the top leadership of al-Qaeda perceived as the American military occu- ordered that the first strike be launched, in pation of the Arabian Peninsula. Of course, spite of protests from Yusuf al-Ayiri, who some members were driven by hatred for allegedly argued that his organization was the regime, and as the campaign evolved, not yet ready.14 History would prove al- the group would get drawn into a vicious Ayiri right. After the first major bombings cycle of tit-for-tat violence with Saudi on May 12, 2003, the Saudi police initiated security forces.17 However, the QAP a crackdown that led to the elimination of never attacked the government as such, al-Ayiri himself and many of his top and no minister was ever the target of an associates. By September 2003, the assassination attempt.18 Moreover, the network was seriously disrupted. In the ideological literature of the QAP consis- late autumn, the group reorganized and tently describes the United States and its launched an extremely professional and Western allies, not the local regime, as its successful internet-based PR campaign main enemy.19 that for a long time would make the organization look more powerful and 41 MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XIII, NO. 4, WINTER 2006 THE MILITANTS Like most militant Islamist organiza- tions, the QAP was an almost exclusively male organization. While most QAP militants had left their families behind, some wives accompanied their husbands in their underground existence.