Word: saud
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...Laden is not the first to challenge the al Sauds' right to rule. Fanatical Ikhwan, once allies of the al Sauds, rebelled in 1929, objecting to foreign influences such as the introduction of radio broadcasts, forcing Ibn Saud to crush them with loyalist tribesmen. In 1979 King Khalid harshly put down a fanatical group that seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, in a violent two-week clash that left 127 Saudi troops and 117 insurgents dead. The message of all these groups has been the same: pure Islam has been corrupted by the al Saud rule...
...nothing has threatened to shake the foundations of the al Saud rule like the challenge posed by the latest generation of Islamic militants. While bin Laden never concentrated on building a political organization, he is loosely connected to like-minded comrades inside the kingdom, from fellow veterans of the Afghan war to a network of fiery young mid-rank clerics who share his views on fighting America and destroying Israel. It was the upshot of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait that ignited their anger. King Fahd's agreement to act as host to U.S. troops, bin Laden charged, revealed...
...President Bush's seeming ambivalence toward the Palestinian cause helped inflame tensions before Sept. 11, the Saudis are appealing for much stronger U.S. pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state. "Wake up, and look at what you are doing in the Middle East," Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, an investor with more than $11 billion in U.S. holdings, said to TIME last week. "Arabs and Muslims have become frustrated...
Saudi officials bitterly complain that America's automatic backing for Israel makes close Saudi ties with Washington a hard sell for their people. Still, much could be done to get the House of Saud in order and head off internal threats. While Crown Prince Abdullah, 78, has been instituting economic reforms and trimming perks like free air travel from the estimated 30,000 members of the extended clan, the public still gripes about rampant official corruption, ranging from taking commissions on arms deals to muscling in on private businessmen. Sclerosis in royal succession is also a problem: because tradition hands...
...invitation of the Saudi government, which was frightened into the move by a threat of invasion by Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 1990, the Saudi regime, says bin Laden, "is fully responsible" for their presence. Thus he has called on his countrymen to overthrow the House of Saud. Still, he has targeted his attacks not on the rulers but on the Americans, noting that "the American enemy is the main cause of the situation...