Terrorism in Saudi Arabia
After the US-led coalition won the 1991 Gulf War, it led to bases elsewhere but several thousand service members, mostly associated with Operation Southern Watch, remained.
It's estimated that some 4000 Saudi nationals are held as "security prisoners" in the country's jails, which means support for either Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, and which includes scholars like Nasir al-Fahd and Ali al-Khudair,[7] while the foreigners detained on terrorism charges number more than 1000, most of them being from Yemen, with 358 individuals.
The following week on 22 November, in Riyadh close to the RSAF HQ, a car bomb detonated on a vehicle driven by British national Steve Coughlan.
Less than one month later on 15 December in Al Khobar, a small IED in a juice carton left on the vehicle (in the parking lot of the Souks Supermarket – now Panda) of British national David Brown exploded as he attempted to remove it.
A bomb placed in a waste bin outside the Jarir bookstore on Oleya Road in central Riyadh on 15 March injured British national Ron Jones.
On 3 May, an American doctor Gary Hatch received injuries to his face and hands after opening a parcel bomb in his office in Al Khobar.
On the eve of the U.S. strike on Afghanistan on 6 October, a pedestrian suicide bomber (who Saudi authorities claim to have been a Palestinian dentist) killed a 33-year-old American employee of Halliburton from Duncan, Oklahoma: Michael Jerrald Martin, outside the popular Metropolitan Store (Mushiri Trading) in Al Khobar.
The Saudi Mabahith investigators of the crimes provided no forensic evidence against them, showed no interest in alcohol trading in their interrogation of suspects and in charges brought against detainees, and attacks of a very similar nature on western nationals continued despite the arrests of the alleged perpetrators.
Although British Embassy officials in Riyadh were aware of the continuing abuse of detainees, they failed to secure the support of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London in pushing hard for their release.
In May, a Sudanese national attempted to shoot down a U.S. fighter jet taking off from the Prince Sultan Air Base with an SA-7 missile.
[11] A month later on 20 June, in the Riyadh suburb of Al-Nakheel, a British national, Simon Veness, a 35-year-old bank employee, was killed after a bomb placed underneath his vehicle exploded a few seconds after he set off for work.
[11] On 20 February, Robert Dent, an employee for BAE Systems was shot to death in his car while waiting at a traffic signal in the Granada district of Riyadh.
The compound bombings led to a crackdown against militants by the Saudi government who until this point had denied there was a terrorist threat within the Kingdom.
On 8 November, hours after the U.S. embassy issued a warning about attacks in Saudi Arabia, a truck bomb struck the al-Mohaya residential compound in Riyadh, killing 17 workers and injured more than 100.
[24] On 22 May, German chef Hermann Dengl was shot to death in Riyadh at an automated teller machine by Panda exit 10.
The four gunmen took dozens hostage, attacking three buildings over a 25-hour period—including the Oasis compound, which houses the employees of foreign oil companies.
[33][34][35][36][37] On 6 June, gunmen shot and killed an Irish cameraman of the BBC, Simon Cumbers, and also wounded reporter Frank Gardner.
[44] On 3 August, Anthony Higgins, an Irish expatriate, was shot and killed at his desk at the Saudi-owned Rocky for Trade and Construction company, in the Al Rawda district of Riyadh.
[50] On 29 December, suicide car bombs exploded outside of the Saudi Interior Ministry and the Special Emergency Force training center, killing a passerby and wounding several others.
Saudi security forces and Al-Qaeda cell members waged a three-day gunfight starting 3 April in the town of Al-Ras in the Qassim region.
A petition was delivered to King Abdullah asking that he consider a constitutional monarchy, and was signed by 100 prominent business leaders and academics.
On 26 February, suspected militants attacked a group of nine French citizens who were returning from the historical site of Madain Saleh in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.
On 19 April, Saudi authorities announced the arrest of eight people who had allegedly aided and abetted in the killings of the French expatriates in February.
On 27 April, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced the arrest of 172 terrorist suspects in a series of raids on seven cells in the Kingdom in an operation lasting several months.
On 28 August, A suicide bomber blew himself up in Jeddah during a Ramadan gathering that included Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, head of the security services.
[60] In September 2011, 38 Saudi citizens and three others suspected of being involved in al-Qaeda appeared in the Specialized Criminal Court on charges including "training in militant camps in Pakistan, fighting in Iraq [with] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, financing terrorism, transporting weapons, forging documents, inciting militants to fight in Iraq and [harbouring] suspected [terrorists]".
The group was composed mostly of Saudi nationals, with links to Al Qaeda (AQAP) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
They had plenty of cash and a facility to make bombs, IEDs and electronic jammers, together with large quantities of arms and explosives smuggled across the border from Yemen.
[69] The next day, as the military was carrying out operations following the skirmish, two militants who were surrounded in a government building blew themselves up in a suicide explosion, according to a Saudi television channel report.
The bomber, a Saudi national who recently returned from fighting for IS in Syria, was blocked from entering the center of the mosque by a 95-year-old man, which limited the terrorist's death toll.
