Saudi Arabia, Blamed for Spawning Jihadists, Is Again Their Target

[Valin]

NY Times:

BEN HUBBARD

JULY 6, 2016

 

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The images have looped on Saudi television stations. The hospital parking lot where a man blew himself up. The remains of a suicide bomber lying in the street. The black smoke rising near the resting place of the Prophet Muhammad, one of the holiest places in Islam.

 

(Snip)

 

The last time Saudi Arabia faced such a threat was when Al Qaeda staged a series of attacks in the kingdom in 2003. The state’s security services hit back hard, arresting and executing many operatives, and by 2008, the kingdom seemed to have mostly stamped out the problem.

 

Things remained relatively calm until 2014, when the Islamic State, adopting many criticisms that were similar to what drove Osama bin Laden, staged a new series of attacks, mostly targeting Shiite mosques and the security services. It has carried out more than two dozen attacks since then, killing dozens.

 

(Snip)

 

And after a number of Saudis who had joined the Islamic State killed their own relatives, some noted that Ibn Taymiyyah, a 13th-century scholar widely admired in Saudi Arabia, had said it was permissible to do exactly that if one’s relatives were apostates.

 

But discussing such issues in Saudi Arabia is bound to cause a backlash from the clerics, who see themselves as the guardians of the kingdom’s Islamic purity.

 

(Snip)

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Family Saud made a deal with the devil in the 18th century. It remains to be seen how they will deal with the broader issues.....ie Wahhabism/Salafism the foundation of their rule.