Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- A note on conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The politics of pan-Islamism
- 2 The classical jihadists
- 3 Recruitment to the early jihad fronts
- 4 Opportunities for global jihad
- 5 Al-Qaida and Saudi Arabia
- 6 Recruitment to al-Qaida
- 7 Post-9/11 Saudi Arabia
- 8 The mujahidin on the Arabian Peninsula
- 9 Recruitment to the QAP
- 10 The failure of the jihad in Arabia
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 – Socio-economic data on Saudi militants
- Appendix 2 – Chronology of Islamist violence in Saudi Arabia, 1979–2009
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE MIDDLE EAST STUDIES 33
7 - Post-9/11 Saudi Arabia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- A note on conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The politics of pan-Islamism
- 2 The classical jihadists
- 3 Recruitment to the early jihad fronts
- 4 Opportunities for global jihad
- 5 Al-Qaida and Saudi Arabia
- 6 Recruitment to al-Qaida
- 7 Post-9/11 Saudi Arabia
- 8 The mujahidin on the Arabian Peninsula
- 9 Recruitment to the QAP
- 10 The failure of the jihad in Arabia
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 – Socio-economic data on Saudi militants
- Appendix 2 – Chronology of Islamist violence in Saudi Arabia, 1979–2009
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE MIDDLE EAST STUDIES 33
Summary
At 5 p.m. local time on 11 September 2001, millions of Saudis watched the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York collapse on live television. Few if any of them realised that this event thousands of miles away had just set in motion forces that would eventually bring bloodshed to the streets of Riyadh. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan would dislodge al-Qaida and lead Bin Ladin to actively plan for a campaign in Saudi Arabia. From late 2001 onward, global jihadists were focusing on a new project: Jihad on the Arabian Peninsula.
At the same time, 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ had altered the context for militant Islamist activism in most corners of the world. How did this affect Saudi Arabia? We shall see that new international developments, polemics on the domestic Islamist scene and changes in policing combined to produce a highly beneficial context for mobilisation to global jihadism in Saudi Arabia between September 2001 and May 2003.
New symbols of Muslim suffering
It may seem curious that 9/11 – the most deadly terrorist attack in history – was followed by an increase in the level of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. This paradox makes better sense when we recall that, at the time of the attack, a pan-Islamist renaissance had been underway in the Muslim world since around 1999.
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- Jihad in Saudi ArabiaViolence and Pan-Islamism since 1979, pp. 143 - 160Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010