In its randomness and bloody mindedness, yesterday's attack on a residential compound in Riyadh, which killed at least 5 people and injured more than 100 others, had al-Qa'ida written all over it. Not only were most of those killed or injured Muslims, but, with many adults out of doors breaking their dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast, a disproportionate number of the victims are likely to be children. Like the triple suicide-bombing in Riyadh in May that claimed 35 lives, yesterday's atrocity is likely to harden Saudi popular opinion against the Islamist terrorists. After the first Gulf War, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, home of the two sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, was the decisive event in the move by Osama bin Laden, himself a Saudi, to establish al-Qa'ida. This has been reiterated by him in every piece of al-Qa'ida propaganda produced since September 11, 2001. But since they are no longer required in Saudi Arabia after the downfall of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq, the 5000 US troops remaining on Saudi soil are in the process of being withdrawn. Not that one expects consistency from a bunch of racist, misogynistic butchers, this nevertheless underlines the danger of taking at face value anything that the terrorists tell us about their motivations, or of fantasising about establishing any kind of dialogue or negotiation with them.

Saudi Arabia occupies a unique niche in the war on terrorism. It is simultaneously part of the solution and a big part of the problem: that is why it is both an exporter and a target of terrorism. The home of Wahhabism, the deeply conservative interpretation of Islam of which bin Laden is an adherent, Saudi Arabia fielded almost all the September 11 hijackers. A 900-page report on the attacks released by the US Congress in July effectively accused the Saudi ruling family of channelling funds to al-Qa'ida. The families of September 11 victims have a $100 trillion lawsuit outstanding against Saudi Arabian interests. And along with Syria and Iran, Saudi Arabia is a source of the current destabilisation of Iraq, with many of the terrorists crossing into Iraq from the Saudi desert. Nor has Wahhabism left Australia untouched: Saudi "charities" are among the main sources of funding for the fundamentalist colleges in Indonesia that support Jemaah Islamiah and that produced the Bali bombers.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia is considered a US ally in the war on terror and – as the presence of those troops testifies – in the campaign to oust Saddam Hussein. As the world's largest producer of oil, it is in intricate relationships with the US, with the ruling al-Saud family providing generous donations to both major US political parties. And to their credit, since the suicide bombings on May 12 the Saudi authorities have been much more assiduous in stepping up security and breaking up the terrorist cells. Despite that, however, there have been portents of a new attack for weeks.

Even more important than the crackdown on terrorists, there have been recent signs of reform and liberalisation in a country that has been an absolute monarchy since its formation in 1932. Under pressure from the US Government, Saudi Arabia has begun a dialogue on human rights, committed itself to a limited degree of electoral freedom, and even allowed demonstrations by pro-democracy groups. This may be, in fact, what provoked the renewed attack by the terrorists: in Saudi Arabia, as in post-Hussein Iraq, they will quite rightly see any movement in the direction of democracy, and rights for women, as a dire threat to their interests.

As citizens in Arab countries experience the economic and social benefits that democracy and human rights, in co-operation with Islam, can bring, the influence of religious radicals will wane and the terrorists' recruiting-swamps will dry up. This is the basis of the Middle East vision outlined by George W. Bush in his keynote speech last week, where he described his mission in the Middle East as analogous to Ronald Reagan's revolutionary impact on European communism in the 1980s. The sophisticates scoffed at President Reagan's vision of a democratic eastern Europe, and of course they are scoffing at Mr Bush now. But yesterday's attack on Riyadh should convince even more Saudis that the Islamists are their enemies, and that the Bush vision is their lifeline.

Yes, like you I watch Iran with anxiety. You’ve given me detailed descriptions which portray your extensive knowledge of what is going on. Such knowledge rarely reaches the pages of our newspapers. Your words showed an almost corrosive, cynical pessimism and your speculations will possibly become hard reports. The potentiality of certain things are always present. Much, I suspect, is suppressed by the Governments in question. Those you have recently spoken to have frighteningly intense, fanatical aspirations and such fanaticism will continue to stir such forces within the Middle East. There is no doubt that Iran gently stirs a simmering pot; an insidious process which coalesces the discontents and gropes further into the masses who are filled with discontent and impatience. Time is playing on their side.
Regarding Iran, yes I have seen new reports regarding the Saudi bombing. There is little doubt in my mind that Iran was involved but how deep that commitment was remains unknown. Getting the evidence is the problem. Iran has increasingly extended their range of activities across the region and they have become discriminating in their dealings.

You’ve brought a unique perspective to the assessment concerning Saudi. The result of which illustrates the challenge of the increasing impact of such activities not only in Saudi but in the ME generally. What you’ve written mirrors my own views. Nothing in the analysis would indicate a more pessimistic outlook. The convergence of the groups mentioned can be regarded as raising their potential and increased activity can be expected in the areas I’ve highlighted on the regional map. If what you have written evolves as expected, it will become increasingly difficult to gain an unequivocal assessment of Iran’s capabilities. Is such a response as you’ve mentioned appropriate for responding to what is to be an operation of aggression and which also runs the risk of raising the prospect that may sew the seeds for significant instability in the region? Personally, I do not believe that it is an effective response and would contain further risk. There is nothing inherently wrong in advocating reprisal attacks but we should not endorse such action for the sake of it.

Your second point should provide some room for manoeuvre. The analysis indicates that there will be an increase in acts of terrorism. You’ve emphasised the risks but such action as you’ve recommended would entail a higher level of risk? Surely the key is to avoid introducing something that increases the risk of further outbreaks of violence? In order to assess whether such an event will be repeated it would be useful to consider the forces underlying the problem. Regarding your fifth point such factors may be offsetting the fact that there is more equipment available which would theoretically maximise the potential for further incidents. Regarding your tenth point, the development echoes an important trend that has prevailed for sometime and enhanced capability combined with changes previously cited in the assessment are behind their more aggressive moves.

In the time available it’s not possible to provide an full overview of all the issues, but I have mentioned a few above and I attach more details separately. In assessing the separate reports , I found that there were a number of fundamental questions. For example, to what extent do the reports contain a balanced assessment? How comprehensive is the analysis? Are the Saudis seeking to reinforce their own interests? (It is not too difficult to understand the Saudi reaction or why they may be anxious to protect and perhaps enhance US involvement). There is a lot to encourage the idea that there must have been a master plan behind the bombing but there is no real supporting evidence that Iran gave the order. I believe the bombing involves a much wider conspiracy than the single group which actually executed it. It is more than possible that the group moved from the realm of ideas to the realm of action though such an order would have to have come from a higher position of authority.

I found the Estimate to be overly complicated and perhaps a little too dynamic and in general I have been a little disappointed in what I have read. (It is a little disappointing that it focussed on action rather than attempting to address the likely future course of events.) I also found though in many ways plausible the theory does not stand up and there are many weaknesses in the report. It would seem that some aspects of the official Saudi version require a good deal of explanation.

There’s no doubt that the Saudis need to improve their transparency and ensure that the US have greater access to all the necessary information and those involved. It would seem that the Saudis are putting a case for reprisal action to be taken without attempting to adopt a more forward looking perspective which I believe is necessary if the various issues are to be assessed properly. In my view the Saudis need to accept more responsibility for the conditions that currently prevail. I attach further notes for your review.

Do you recall the above? The past becomes today even though the past was as before - nothing has changed

The deadly suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia serve as a reminder — if anyone needed it — that the threat of terrorism out of the Middle East is still very much with us.

The attacks, which seem to have killed at least 20 people, were aimed at several compounds that house Westerners working in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Within the walls of the compounds, non-Muslims are able to replicate something akin to the lifestyles they had back home. American expatriates see them as a means of maintaining their own cultural preferences, for free mixing of the sexes and the availability of alcohol and uncensored movies, within the strict Wahhabi religious dictates of Saudi society. But Islamic fundamentalists have always been affronted by the enclaves, and for terrorists, the compounds serve as a handy symbol of the modern Western culture they despise. Attacking them also ensures intense publicity.

The Saudi government, which relies on foreign workers to support key parts of its economy, understands that it must move quickly to root out the people who strove to make a political point by plotting yet another murderous attack. That is the obvious first step. The second must be internal reforms that will reduce the population of unemployed, angry, disenfranchised young people who connect the United States with a government that ignores their problems.

The Bush administration is already embarked on a plan to take American troops out of Saudi Arabia. That is a smart idea that will eliminate one target of fundamentalist ire, put our soldiers where they can be more easily protected and give the Saudi royal family an opening to begin making political and economic concessions to its restless people. Nothing that happened this week should deter the administration from pursuing that plan.

Many in the Western world will always view the tragedy of Sept. 11 as being about America, but to the people who carried it out, the terrorist attack was as much about Saudi Arabia. The United States is a supporting player in the terrorists' own internal political drama, which centers on fundamentalist religion, a grandiose vision of their own role in world affairs and an anger at the Saudi government's alliance with non-Muslim Western nations.

The Bush administration hopes to replace that story with a new one, involving democracy, economic opportunity and liberty. It would begin with a new era in Iraq, the road to peace in Israel and increasing democratization in other Arab nations. Right now, with chaos in Baghdad and foot-dragging by Israel, that path looks treacherous. But it is the best current chance for a way out, toward a future in which suicide attacks on innocent civilians will be understood by Muslims around the world not as a form of political protest, but as utter insanity.

The death toll from three car bomb attacks late Monday night that blasted apart buildings in separate residential compounds occupied by Americans and other foreigners rose to at least 20 today, with scores of others wounded, Saudi and American officials said.

The suicide attacks spread terror and confusion through the night and drew condemnation from President Bush, Saudi leaders and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who arrived in Riyadh for scheduled talks with Crown Prince Abdullah only hours after the blasts.

Mr. Powell toured an apartment complex where the entire front was blown off. There was furniture and clothing strewn about the area around a 10-foot-deep crater and nearby there was an overturned truck that had been blasted apart.

Mr. Powell seemed shaken as he toured the site, just as a dust storm whipped through the rubble and a pungent stench from the explosives hung in the torrid air.

``This was a well-planned terrorist attack, obviously,'' he said somberly. ``The facility had been cased, as had the others. Very well executed. And it shows the nature of the enemy we are working against. These are people who are determined to try to penetrate facilities like this for purpose of killing people in their sleep, killing innocent people, killing people who are trying to help others.''

Like other officials, Mr. Powell said there was no evidence that Al Qaeda had carried out the attack, but he said it had that group's ``fingerprints.''

[President Bush reacted angrily to the attack.

``Today's attacks in Saudi Arabia, the ruthless murder of American citizens and other citizens, remind us that the war on terror continues,'' he said at an appearance in Indianapolis.

The president called the bombings ``despicable acts committed by killers whose only faith is hate.'' The crowd of 7,000 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds roared its approval when he said, ``The United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice.'']

Early reports by a Saudi official put the toll at 20. He said that seven Americans, seven Saudis, two Jordanians, two Filipinos, one Lebanese and one Swiss died. In addition, nine charred bodies believed to be those of the suicide attackers were found, the official said. American officials said they did not dispute those figures.

American officials said the three attacks were almost identical in method. In each case, a vehicle sped to a lightly guarded entry gate of one of three large residential compounds in the northeastern part of the sprawling capital. Gunmen shot their way past the sentries and then got inside the guardhouse to open the gate and to lower other barriers.

Then a second vehicle laden with explosives made its way into the compound, following similar routes that got them to the center where most people were retiring for the evening, before the drivers set off an explosion. A military officer at the Vinnell Arabia compound, which Mr. Powell visited, said there was a possibility that some of the perpetrators had fled at either the compound entrance or from the second vehicle before it exploded.

He said that all of the attacks took place within a few minutes of each other at approximately 11:20 p.m. and that it appeared the truck at the Vinnell complex contained 400 pounds of explosive material similar, he said.

That attackers appeared clearly to have singled out residential compounds occupied by foreigners. The Vinnell Arabia compound was home to about 500 military advisors, many retired from American armed forces, employed to help train the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which is a domestic security force.

The other two compounds were identified as Al Hambra and Gedawal, both occupied by some of the foreign community in Saudi Arabia working for businesses and trade organizations. Those compunds were home to not only to Americans and to British, but also Philippine, Turkish and other foreign citizens, as well as Saudis.

The estimates of the number of expatriots living in Riyadh ranges from 15,000 to 35,000. Some residents at the Al Hambra compound said this evening that many of their colleagues had left the country before the recent war with Iraq and had only started to return in recent weeks.

``Before the war, they asked us all to leave,'' said Jelal Berkel, 39, an employee of Saudi Snack Foods, a subsidiary of Frito Lay. ``But we said we feel secure in the compound. What a mistake.''

He said he and his wife, Elif, heard a loud clicking sound late at night, and initially thought it was firecrackers. It turned out to be automatic gunfire.

When they went to the window, he said they said they saw a huge orange light covering the sky, followed by an explosion and then intense heat. The blast blew open their windows and doors. In a videotape they made of the damage, the entire fronts of several apartments and villas had been sheered off and the contents blown about the area.

``It looks like a cruise missile or a Tomahawk or Scud missile fell into the place,'' Mr. Berkel said.

The Berkels said they were leaving Saudi Arabia immediately and they predicted other foreigners would as well, and they seemed puzzled by their own complacency until recently. Mrs. Berkel said that after the war with Iraq was over, the security gate to their compound was kept open after being closed during the war.

``You believe what you want to believe,'' she said. ``We thought it was very secure. We were just so happy and relaxed that everything was back to normal.''

Suicide bombers injured more than
40 Americans and other nationals and probably killed others in
devastating attacks on Westerners' compounds in Riyadh on Monday
night, a Saudi minister and the U.S. ambassador said.
The blasts came hours before U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell was due in the Saudi Arabian capital on Tuesday.
The bombs seemed to be the latest anti-Western attacks in
the kingdom that is the birthplace of Islam -- and also of Osama
bin Laden, head of the al Qaeda network blamed for the September
11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"The three explosions that occurred in eastern Riyadh were
suicide bombings," Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef told Al
Riyadh daily, the newspaper's website reported.
"They were set off by cars stuffed with explosives that were
driven into the targeted compounds," he said.
U.S. ambassador Robert W. Jordan told CNN television from
Riyadh that more than 40 Americans had been wounded at the
heavily guarded compounds.
"We have somewhat over 40 Americans hospitalised at this
stage," he said. He thought it was likely there would be more
casualties and that there were a "fair number of other
nationals" injured and perhaps killed.
In Washington, the State Department said Powell would travel
to Riyadh as scheduled despite the bombings. He was due in
Riyadh at 11:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) to see Crown Prince Abdullah bin
Abdul-Aziz on the latest leg of a Middle East tour.
Powell spent the night in Jordan as part of a drive to
promote a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.
A Saudi hospital official earlier told Reuters the blasts
had killed an unspecified number of foreigners and Saudis. He
said none of the dead were at his hospital but that he had
received reliable information from colleagues elsewhere.

U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS FOUR BLASTS
A U.S. official who declined to be named said there had been
at least four bombs. Witnesses had earlier said they had heard
three blasts, which sent fire balls into the night sky.
above the Gharnata, Ishbiliya and Cordoba compounds.
The official also included a housing compound for a joint
Western-Saudi company in his count.
Ambulances rushed to and from the sites as hundreds of riot
police poured in to cordon the areas off. Helicopters scanned
the area with searchlights, weaving among plumes of smoke.
A European resident of one of the targeted compounds,
identified as Nick, said the explosion occurred shortly before
midnight and was so powerful it blasted windows and doors out of
houses.
"We were sleeping when we were woken up by the sound of
gunfire," he told the Arab News newspaper. "Moments later, a
loud explosion was heard followed by another bigger explosion. I
have a five-month-old baby. She was sleeping next to the window
when the blast took place."
One Australian woman, named as Helen, told CNN television
trucks had rammed into gates at her walled and heavily guarded
villa compound and exploded after an exchange of gunfire.
The U.S. official said there were suspicions the bombings
could be an al Qaeda operation, but it was "too early to tell".
On May 1, the United States renewed a warning for citizens
to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia. One official said intelligence
agencies had credible information about a possible al Qaeda plot
to strike American targets there. The same day, a gunman wounded
a U.S. civilian at a naval base in Saudi Arabia.

POLICE HUNT MILITANTS
On May 7 police said they were hunting 19 suspected
militants, mainly Saudis, believed to be hiding in Riyadh after
a shoot-out with security forces the previous day. The Interior
Ministry said police had also found a huge cache of explosives,
hand grenades, ammunition and machineguns.
Helen told CNN her sturdy villa had shaken like a cardboard
box. "What am I doing living in a country where we need this
kind of security? We're surrounded by people who obviously don't
want us here...it's the ugliest day in my life."
U.S.-Saudi ties came under strain after the September 11
attacks, apparently carried out mainly by Saudis loyal to bin
Laden's al Qaeda group, one of whose key demands is for U.S.
forces to leave the home of Islam's holiest sites.
Many ordinary Saudis, angry with perceived U.S. bias towards
Israel, are also irked by the presence of Western troops.
Suspected militant Islamists have twice launched major
attacks on U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia since the 1991 Gulf War to
eject Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait.
In 1995, five Americans and two Indians were killed and 60
people were injured in an explosion in a car park near a
U.S.-run military training centre in Riyadh.
In 1996, a bomb in a fuel truck killed 19 U.S. soldiers and
wounded nearly 400 people at a U.S. military housing complex in
the eastern city of Khobar.
Last February, a British defence contractor was killed by a
Saudi suspected of al Qaeda links.
Two weeks ago the United States said it was removing
virtually all forces from the kingdom as they were no longer
needed after the war in Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein.
Saudi Arabia has charged 90 Saudis with belonging to al
Qaeda and is interrogating another 250.