Of the five men who assaulted the consulate, four were killed following a hostage standoff, according to the Saudi ministry of interior. Four maintenance workers and drivers in the embassy’s motor pool and one local security guard were killed—none of them Americans. The one remaining assailant was wounded and captured.

“They held us hostage for an hour, an hour and a half. We were in two groups of about four and eight,” Muaffa Jilan Ibrahim, a Yemeni maintenance worker, told Reuters. “They told the security forces in front of us: ‘We have hostages. If you approach, we will shoot.’ They put us in front of them as human shields. The security forces stormed in and there was an exchange of fire.”

This is the first assault on an embassy in a two-year campaign of armed attacks. During this period, opponents of the royal family have carried out bombings directed primarily against foreigners working in the country’s oil industry.

A high point of the al-Qaeda campaign in Saudi Arabia over the past two years was the successful attack in May on a compound housing oil company employees. Four gunmen carried out that attack, leaving 22 of the compound’s residents dead. Three of the four assailants escaped literally under the noses of Saudi police.

The May attack was an embarrassment for the Saudi ruling class, which has been trying to burnish its image with Washington by taking action against radical “Islamic” groups.

Washington has been pressing the Saudi rulers to crack down on al-Qaeda and similar groups that have a base of support in the kingdom, including among a section of the royal family. At the same time, Washington has demanded that Riyadh shut down Islamic religious schools that it says foment the campaign of armed attacks.

While the bulk of the recent attacks have been aimed at citizens of the United States, Britain, and other imperialist powers, the ultimate goal of these groups is to replace the monarchy in Riyadh with an “Islamic state” that will exercise control over the holy city of Mecca. The ruling House of Saud has long relied on its imperialist protectors to shield it from opposition, including al-Qaeda, whose central figure, Osama bin Laden, is a member of the Saudi aristocracy.

In the spring of 2003, the Pentagon removed all but 400 of the 5,000 troops it had stationed in Saudi Arabia. Washington’s clear message was that the survival of the House of Saud depended on purging its ranks of sympathizers with anti-American groups and joining Washington unstintingly in the “war on terror.”

Since then, voices within the Saudi ruling class have argued for this course. In a June 1 editorial in the Saudi daily al Watan, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States and an influential figure in the Saudi ruling family, called for a “jihad” against terrorism. “If we deal [with them] hesitantly, in hope that [the terrorists] are Muslim youths who have been misled…in hope that they will come to their senses,” he argued, “we will lose this war…and enter a dark world whose end only Allah knows.”

“Enough blaming others when the reason lies within our own ranks! Enough demagoguery at this critical stage in our history!” Bandar continued, in a clear reference to the anti-U.S. posture often adopted by the Saudi rulers. “We must…kill those who spread corruption in the land…. If we do not declare a general mobilization—we will lose this war on terrorism.”

There is evidence that Riyadh is following Bandar’s advice. According to the Christian Science Monitor, since May “at least three successive leaders of Al Qaeda inside the country have been killed. Last June, Prince Turki al-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence and the current ambassador in London, told Jane’s Intelligence Review that Al Qaeda was severely disrupted inside the country. ‘Only one Al Qaeda cell remains operational,’ he said. ‘Even now, it’s in the process of being dismantled.’”

One year ago, the Saudi government published a list of 26 top al-Qaeda operatives in the country. Since that time, 17 of the 26 have been captured or killed. According to al-Faisal, Saudi forces have arrested about 1,000 people in the course of this crackdown.

“It’s clear al-Qaeda has been losing,” Abdelaziz al-Qassim, a cleric in Riyadh, told the Financial Times. “By striking a target that’s even better protected than the royals’ palaces it’s trying to improve its image.”

U.S. president George Bush gave a press conference in Washington the day of the attack alongside Iraqi interim president Ghazi Al-Yawar. Bush thanked the Saudi government “for responding as quickly as they did.”  
 
 
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