SERIES: Fugitives Of The Peninsula – (Chapter 6 – The Blood of Al-Battar)

Written by Nolan R Beasley

SEGMENT II – Land Of Peace, Children Of War – CHAPTER 6 – The Blood of al-Battar

For the entirety of the Series, please see – https://chroniclesinzealotry.com/fugitives-of-the-peninsula/

This chapter further explores Yusef al-Ayiri (al-Battar), the reluctant primary al-Qaida contact in the Kingdom, his works, his involvement in a frightening plot, and how his incoming peers eventually overshadowed him. We focus on the coalescing of the disparate jihadist factions at the disposal of al-Qaida leadership in the region. In conclusion, we view the Saudi attempts to curb the spreading scourge via the arrests of potentially significant instigators.

Swift Sword

Yusef al-Ayiri was known to his al-Qaida counterparts as Swift Sword, an English transliteration of the Prophet Mohamed’s sword al-Battar [1]. As such, further evidence of his value to al-Qaida was gleaned from the late 1990s roster of 170 members [2]. The al-Battar appellation appears twice, but the first, at number 81, indicates that this individual was in the custody of Saudi authorities [2]. This seems to correspond to Ayiri’s incarceration by the Saudis in a post-Khobar bombings sweep [3]. Ayiri was definitely an asset, having been so close to bin Laden and also being in direct contact with senior al-Qaida leadership in Iran including Saif al-Adel.  He could effectively lead the fight in the Arabian Peninsula because he had had the time to set up the infrastructure and a capable network [4].  This network could essentially operate independently due to its organization and abundance of experienced members.  While by the time of his arrest Abdulrahim al-Nashiri was a known figure to most intelligence agencies, Ayiri had inexplicably been allowed to labor in his efforts under the radar.  With Nashiri out of the way, Ayiri and his men became the core of the Al-Qaida organization in the holy land.  They had of course incorporated some of Nashiri’s contacts and men, such as the Yemeni Khalid al-Hajj, as well as the aforementioned Khalid al-Jehani [4].  Ayiri’s network was comprised of numerous cells or crews.  The most prominent of these cells were headed by Turki al-Dandani, Ali al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, and Abdulaziz al-Muqrin [5].  Dandani’s crew was extensive and was responsible for carrying out the Riyadh compound bombing operation.  That is not to say that the other groups did not play their own roles as well.  Each cell was outfitted with men capable in communications, transportation, harboring the fugitives within their group, fighting, demolition, logistics, computers, weaponry, etc [6].  Dandani and his men were forced into hiding after the initial attacks [6].  Ghamdi, who had been skeptical that it was the right time to make such a bold move against the Saudis, led a second crew with his brutal right-hand Sultan al-Qahtani, who was to be known in American intelligence circles as Zubayr al-Rimi [7,8].  Ghamdi and Rimi would focus on striking soft American targets [8].  The third cell headed by Muqrin would prove to show an egregious disregard for life, both Muslim and non-Muslim, despite their rhetoric that they were fighting to preserve and protect their faith.  With Ayiri’s network in place, it would become apparent that the confidence felt by American intelligence after Nashiri’s capture may have been slightly misplaced. 

Ayiri was also known as a top ideologue for the terrorist outfit as a whole.  He was attributed with being a pioneer of the organization’s presence online.  He, as Swift Sword [9], was the overseer of Al-Nida [10].  Al-Nida was the de facto website for the terrorist group.  It was the only source of news and literature about and from some of the top names in the group [10].  Ayiri of course went by his nom de guerre and alias, but it is known that other top Al-Qaida leaders wrote for and contributed to the website as well.  They included Saif al-Adel himself and Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the Kuwaiti ideologue and spokesman for Al-Qaida during this era [10].  Swift Sword was a constant contributor to the website and his technical knowledge was of great benefit to the network.  He was able to stay in communication with Al-Qaida leaders in both Pakistan and Iran, and was able to use these links to post up to date information about the fighting in Afghanistan [10].  Ayiri had always been a close aide and confidant to bin Laden and his most strategic associates.  Ayiri had like many other bin Laden lieutenants, began his Al-Qaida career as a bodyguard for the organization’s emir.  As was mentioned in Segment I, he became so close to the leader that when bin Laden was forced from Saudi Arabia to Sudan in 1992, Ayiri was one of only five associates, including Mohamed Atef, to fly personally with him on his plane [10].  As a veteran of the fighting in Afghanistan, Ayiri put his skills to usage in fighting alongside and training Somali Islamists and insurgents, before eventually returning to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s [11,12].  While in Somalia he reportedly participated directly in the infamous Battle of Mogadishu against US forces in October 1993 [11].

After his arrest in the wake of the Khobar bombings, Ayiri’s voracious studying considerably increased his Islamic ideologue notoriety while imprisoned, and upon release via royal pardon in 1998, he helped to fundraise and sponsor the cause of fighters in Chechnya [12]. As mentioned, after he briefly visited Afghanistan in 2000, he returned with a new found zeal for jihad in that nation, diverting his previous attentions to causes that would now benefit bin Laden and the Taliban [12].  He is believed to have traveled back to Afghanistan prior to 9/11, but it is unknown when this occurred exactly, as in 2001, while Ayiri was working to coordinate between extreme Saudi clerics and Taliban leadership, he had been involved in a vehicle crash with a camel, and was imprisoned until August of that year [12,13].  It can be seen that Ayiri had been in rather powerful company in terms of Al-Qaida leadership and known jihadists.  The lack of intelligence on him is, in retrospect, truly astounding.  Another of his facets that made him stand out to Al-Qaida leadership was his ability for prose. 

As Swift Sword, (and utilizing the monikers Abu Qutaybah al-Makki or Salah al-Din [10]), the terrorist confidant was also attributed with at least two fascinating works of militant literature.  The first was The Future of Iraq:  the Arabian Peninsula after the Fall of Baghdad.  The book, written in 2002 and released in August of 2003 details how an American invasion of Iraq would provide a breeding ground for jihadists, and would bog the Americans down into an unwinnable war [14,15].  The resulting occupation would provide the perfect scenario for jihadists attempting to recreate the failed Russian invasion of Afghanistan.  The number of American and allied troops would be enormous and the amount of targets thusly greater.  Iraq would be the debacle for America that Afghanistan so far had not been [15].  The book also described how the fall of the Baathist regime in Iraq was actually a victory for the jihadists as it essentially opened the door for more people to accept Islamist ideology in the power vacuum [14].  The book also decries the democracy that the Americans intended to put in place in Iraq as heresy against God [14].  According to Ayiri, government could not be conducted properly by the people, but only by God [14].  The next book ascribed to Ayiri was entitled The Crusaders’ War Against Iraq and focused on the extreme guerilla tactics that could be used to fight against an American occupation of a predominantly Muslim country [15].  Ayiri warned also that the war in Iraq was an essential aspect of the fight against American and Western ideology because it was but the first in a pending series of attacks against the Islamist way of life [14].  The writings were telling to say the least and in retrospect, offered quite an ominous foreshadowing of what was to come.  In all Ayiri was said to have authored some forty books and numerous essays [14].  He even wrote a book called The Truth of the New Crusade, which was directly referenced by bin Laden in October 2001 [12].  Some sources refered to Ayiri as bin Laden’s “unknown soldier” due to his lack of status as a notorious terrorist [4].  This as mentioned above, was beneficial to Ayiri in constructing his network, running his website, and producing various other jihadist material online.  The propaganda put out by Ayiri was very interesting and important to Al-Qaida.  Again, this was because Ayiri was so close to the inner circle and thus inner workings of the organization so shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan. 

Mubtakkar

In fact, Ayiri had again been to Afghanistan just months prior to the attacks in Riyadh, where he had allegedly received orders from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri [16].  The orders he received revolved around a frightening terror scenario later revealed by author Ron Suskind.  In his book, The One Percent Doctrine, Suskind states that operatives linked to Al-Qaida had entered the US and were planning an ingenious attack on New York City transportation [16].  They were to use a device to disperse Hydrogen Cyanide gas throughout subways, buses, etc, killing mass numbers of people.  The device was known as the mubtakkar in the terrorist inner circles [16].  It had already been constructed, and would contain a unit comprised of sodium cyanide to be mixed with Hydrochloric acid, thus releasing the deadly gas HCN [16]. The plot was within a month and a half of being implemented when Ayiri went over the details with Zawahiri [16].  The construction and efficacy of the device was proven in militant testing within the Kingdom [17]. This meeting took place in January of 2003 [16]. An informant, operating in al-Qaida as Abu Abbas al-Bahraini, surreptitiously revealed the details to his MI6 handlers [17].  By February, raids conducted by the Saudis, Bahrainis, and Americans had netted Bahraini and Saudi criminals and extremists militants potentially involved in terrorist plots [16].  Of principle concern was a competent Bahrani jihadist, Bassam Bokhowa, who was arrested traversing the King Fahd Bridge from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain with two other jihadists and two weapons smugglers [16]. A computer garnered by the subsequent Saudi raids led investigators to the name mubtakkar (and the designs to manufacture the device), which began the worries for intelligence and security officials.  The information was of grave concern to the White House [16]. Eventually, the mole inside al-Qaida’s Arabian network (known to governments and intelligence services only as Ali), tipped off intelligence agents about an individual known as Swift Sword who was deeply involved in the plot [16].  He also described the mubtakkar and its purpose [16].  More disturbing was the fact that Ayiri was so unknown to intelligence circles, that he had actually been picked up by Saudi forces and held for a few days prior to being released [16].  He had been arrested based on evidence from Bokhowa and the Bahraini jihadists, plus the raids which had captured them [16].  Ali provided the revelation that Swift Sword and Yusef al-Ayiri were one individual [16]. However, Ayiri was free again, exemplifying why US intelligence had little faith in Arab countries properly detaining suspects.  Ali finally revealed that Zawahiri, upon learning of the plots from Ayiri, ordered them to be called off [16].  Ali was later unveiled as a Bahraini jihadist known as Aimen Dean, who was recruited by British intelligence after being disillusioned by al-Qaida [18]. In addition to being well acquainted with senior al-Qaida officials, he was also particularly familiar with Khalid al-Hajj whom he had previously fought beside of in Bosnia during the mid-1990s [18]. Thus, Aimen Dean, as Ali, was a credible source on both central al-Qaida plots and those of the nascent Arabian franchise. Meanwhile, Bassam Bokhowa and his two comrades were released sans charge, only to be apprehended again in June 2004 on suspicion of plotting terror attacks in Bahrain [19]. By November 2004 Bokhowa and his associates were liberated by a Bahraini appellate court [20].

There was sincere disquiet and concern as to why Zawahiri aborted the mubtakkar project [16]. Initial speculation from senior US officials revolved around the possibility that Zawahiri was convinced that al-Qaida had even more devastating operations scheduled, and that the mubtakkar incidents would only hamper these future plans [16].  Ayiri thus cancelled the attacks [16].  This information was brought by the CIA directly to President Bush and his advisors [16].  They were entirely frightened by the prospect that al-Qaida had something larger, more destructive and detrimental than the mubtakkar [16].  In reality though, Zawahiri aborted the attack in order to prevent its potential carnage from being utilized by the Bush Administration as vindication and justification for the impending invasion of Iraq [17]. The al-Qaida Majlis ash-Shura (executive council) was in agreement [18]. Meanwhile, the US implored the Saudis to find Ayiri and take him alive so that he could be properly interrogated [16].  This operative was a remarkable source of information on potential plots, the Arabian Peninsula branch of Al-Qaida, and the potential whereabouts of upper echelon Al-Qaida.  The CIA and the White House needed Ayiri out of action.  More importantly, they needed him alive and talking.

Unaffiliated Violence

With all of this being said, it must be noted that Ayiri was not able to reign in all of the various Saudi fighters who had returned from the frontlines in Afghanistan.  Some of these men were able to return and carry out their own crimes.  Three such men carried out a murder spree of Saudi officials in the Sakaka area of al-Jawf province prior to the outbreak of violence led by Ayiri’s network [21,22].  Hisham Awad Munzil al-Awdha, Mohamed Awad Rajeh al-Belhoud and Amjad Abdulaziz Khamis al-Jabir had formulated their plans while together in Afghanistan and returned home with a vengeance against their government [21,22].  Awdha had been considered the best trainee at a Libyan run camp in Afghanistan, and had been joined there by Jabir who was described as an achieved horseman [23].  While Awdha and Jabir were young recruits, Belhoud was an experienced jihadist who had previously fought in Afghanistan [23].  Their series of murders would be seen as a prelude to the coming violence of 2003.  In all, the men killed five Saudis.  On August 3, 2002 they survived a shootout with Saudi security forces which left one security member dead, after the three men had abducted an Indian national [21].  On September 12 they killed Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Suhaibani after his prayers by gunning him down [21].  Their most famous murder came on February 17, 2003 when they killed Dr. Hamad al-Wardi, the deputy governor of al-Jawf province while he drove to work [21].  This was followed by the March 25 ambush of a patrol car which left policeman Ali al-Ruwaili dead and the April 21 killing of Major General Hamud al-Suwailim of the Jawf security forces [21].  The three were eventually captured by the Saudi forces they were so deliberately targeting.  They were tried and executed by beheading in Sakaka, al-Jawf, the very location they terrorized [21,22].  In addition, on May 1, 2003, a militant dressed in a Saudi naval uniform opened fire at King Abdulaziz Naval base in Jubail and wounded an American contractor [24].  One month later the man died and added to the toll taken by the returning yet unbridled fighters [24].  Not all of the violence was perpetrated by returning militants.  Saud Ali Nasser was a Saudi of Yemeni birth who worked at a Riyadh Toyota dealership, and appears to have been connected to and inspired by returning militant elements, but not actually one of them [25,26].  On February 20, 2003 he shot and killed a British BAE employee named Robert Dent, stopped at a traffic light in Riyadh [25,26].  Nasser was pursued and captured with the murder weapon [25].  A further two BAE employees were shot at the same month, leading officials to conclude terrorism was at fault [25,26].  These acts exemplified that Ayiri would be able to recruit sympathizers and soldiers from the regular populace of the Kingdom and not just from the returning militants.     

The al-Jawf spree had greatly disturbed the Saudi security forces, yet shortly after their moment ended, Ayiri’s consolidated network threw the Kingdom into a state of chaos.  Despite the US request to capture the man, the Saudis were determined to quickly put an end to this militant that had shattered their ideal of a land of peace.  

The Bloodstained Letter

On the night of May 31, 2003, authorities manning a Saudi checkpoint in Ha’il noticed a fairly suspicious SUV and requested for it to stop.  The two men inside refused and sped through the barrier past the security forces [27,28].  The resulting pursuit would be the cause of much controversy, jubilation, and disgust.  This wide range of emotions was due to the fact that the man being driven in the vehicle was none other than Ayiri.  The late night chase began near Turba which is nearly 200 km from the main city in the Ha’il region and continued down the Ha’il-Lainah road [27].  The chase quickly turned violent when Ayiri and his driver fired upon their pursuers.  A hand grenade thrown from the vehicle killed two Saudi security force members.  The gunfire and explosion also wounded two others.  The deceased Saudi security men were Dirdah Waqa Rabah al-Shammari and Saud Abdullah al-Musalimani al-Shammari [28].  The wounded were Farhan Hamud al-Shammari and Abdullah Mishal al-Shammari [28].  The suspects themselves were eventually cornered outside of their vehicle.  Ayiri’s driver, Abdullah Ibrahim Abdullah al-Shabrami was wounded and arrested [27,28].  Yusef al-Ayiri, Swift Sword, whom the US had strictly requested from the Saudis to have taken alive, was wounded and eventually shot dead [16,27,28].  The Saudis tried to explain their position by stating that in the intensity of the firefight, their men had acted with too much fervor and zeal [16].  In light of this, Ayiri’s death was unavoidable, however unfortunate.  With him died the chance to garner an untold amount of intelligence on Al-Qaida.  The Saudis reacted with jubilation at having removed a name from their List A.  They had removed arguably the most important name from the ranks of the most wanted.  To the incredulous American government, to the President, and to the CIA, this was a repugnant moment because they were stripped of any chance to interrogate this man [16]. 

Yusef al-Ayiri

Interestingly, there was some evidence gleaned even from the corpse of Ayiri.  In his pocket the night of his death was a bloodstained handwritten letter to Ayiri from Osama bin Laden [29].  The letter was dated on December 9, 2002 and referenced Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan [29].  The letter corroborated the eventual intelligence that Ayiri was a close personal confidant to Al-Qaida leadership and that he maintained contact with them, even as far as allegedly visiting the war theatre in late 2002-early 2003.  Senior al-Qaida officials dedicated valuable resources in the usage of their strict courier network to deliver specific messages to only their most vital of lieutenants. The US greatly regretted having missed the chance to take Ayiri into interrogation.  The US jumped at the opportunity however to take alive one of Ayiri’s top henchmen. 

Auspicious Arrests

Ali al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi

Ali Abdulrahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi was known as Abu Baqr al-Azdi during his time with Al-Qaida in Afghanistan [30].  Prior to his radicalization and his journey to jihad in Afghanistan, he had studied economics in the Kingdom [30,31].  Ghamdi was known to have been at the Tora Bora complex in eastern Afghanistan with bin Laden and some upper echelon Al-Qaida leadership prior to the American bombing campaign there [30].  As mentioned, Ghamdi was one of multiple foreign mujahidin fighters who fled the battles in Afghanistan.  He had stayed at an al-Qaida safe house in Pakistan briefly following his departure from Tora Bora [32].  Eventually, he crossed the border into Iran and then melded back into his homeland [33].  Ghamdi, as well as several others, had successfully penetrated the dragnet of Pakistani forces, US forces and Northern Alliance soldiers trying to prevent escapes [32].  Ghamdi as previously mentioned, used his prowess from being closely associated with Al-Qaida leadership to hold sway within its Arabian Peninsula branch.  Many sources inaccurately listed Ghamdi as the mastermind of the Riyadh attacks due to his prominence on their most wanted List A [30,34].  Ghamdi seems to have been however heavily involved in the attacks, an important cell leader for Ayiri, and a compatriot of Turki al-Dandani, the actual commander of the Riyadh bombing cell.  Ghamdi and his men were involved in plotting against the Saudis and preparing for the insurgency.  His contacts within Al-Qaida included Saif al-Adel and Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah “Abu Mohamed al-Masri” the Al-Qaida point man for the 1998 US Embassy bombings and a chief training camp overseer who had also escaped to Iran [30].  It had of course been Saif al-Adel to issue the orders to Ayiri, Ghamdi, and Dandani to commence the assault on the Saudi government.  Ghamdi was from Riyadh and had matriculated at the King Abdulaziz University, attempting to major in the abovementioned economics before dropping out [30].  Once he left school, he became radicalized and fled to Afghanistan where he trained with and joined Al-Qaida [35].  He actually made numerous visits there, with his last opportunity to be in Afghanistan being in late 2001 prior to the Tora Bora bombing raids [35].  Ghamdi was also known to have written some propaganda himself although his family disputes this claim [35].  Furthermore, it is claimed by former CIA Director George Tenet that Ghamdi, prior to the Riyadh attacks, negotiated with arms smugglers to attempt to gain possession of a Weapon of Mass Destruction on behalf of Al-Qaida, and that in response Tenet had to warn the Saudi royal family of this development [36].  Shortly after the Riyadh compound bombings, Ayiri, Dandani, and Ghamdi found themselves as the most infamous men within their Kingdom.  Their network and they themselves were heavily and immediately targeted by the Saudis for retaliation and destruction. 

In the weeks leading up to Ayiri’s death, the Saudis made numerous arrests.  By late May, the Saudis arrested three prominent clerics who had issued fatwas against the West [35,37].  They were Ali Fahd al-Khudair, Ahmed Hamud Mufreh al-Khalidi, and Nasir Ahmed al-Fuhaid [35].  The clerics also had stated that they supported the Riyadh attacks and that they felt it was the duty of Saudi citizens to shelter and protect the wanted militants [37].  The men were adherents of the puritanical denomination of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, which originated in the Arabian Peninsula, persisted as the state sponsored religion of the staunchly conservative Saudis, and is often viewed as the wellspring of modern radicals.  The trio were arrested in Medina along with several other supposed Al-Qaida facilitators, fighters, and allies [27,34,35].  They had played a critical role in the justifications that AQSA and AQAP went on to use in the future.  Although they were not integral AQSA idealogues themselves, it can be seen how the work of these austere and revered men was influential.  Their positions were untenable under critique from the broader Islamic ideology, but they had engrossed an audience of Saudi radicals.  Furthermore, it is believed that they had al-Qaida contacts, to the point where a fatwa was issued that justified usage of weapons of mass destruction, apparently as a lead up to what would have been al-Qaida’s mubtakkar operation, or the above mentioned Ghamdi negotiations [36,38]. In addition to these arrests, it was revealed that after being approached at an internet café, three militants had been arrested.  One of those arrested during the May 27-28 raids was supposedly Ghamdi [34,35].  Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohamed bin Naif neither confirmed that Ghamdi was arrested leaving the internet café nor that his computers had been confiscated as had been reported [34,35,39].  The internet café arrests, while not yielding Ghamdi, did provide security forces with the address at which they arrested the three radical clerics in Medina [40].  Further adding to the Ghamdi confusion was an additional report stating that Ghamdi had been apprehended at a highway checkpoint outside of Medina [34].  Clarity was provided as the Saudis soon released the names of the suspects arrested in the Medina round up.  They were in addition to the clerics Fuhaid, Khalidi and Khudair:  Saad Abdulrazaq Al-Ghamdi, Turki Abdulaziz Al-Fuhaid, Nasir Hamad Al-Fahd, Mohamed Salim Al-Ghamdi, Hisham Mubarak Al-Hakami, Omar Mubarak Al-Hakami, Majdi Ahmed Al-Khabrani, and Abdulmunim Ali Mahfouz Al-Ghamdi [27,41-43].  Interestingly, the militant named Abdulmunim al-Ghamdi had been captured after a brief car chase [41-43].  These men were all Saudis and were accused of harboring a cache of weapons, communications equipment, money and ammo [41].  The suspects had kept cameras and bombing making materials at several locations throughout Medina [27].  Also two Moroccan suspects: Talib Ahmed Karim and Mohamed Abdulfateh Mohamed Karam were arrested [27,41].  The brief car chase which led to the capture of Abdulmunim al-Ghamdi also resulted in the arrest of his Syrian wife Gheida Ahmed Souidah, and two Moroccan women, Ayida Ahmed al-Sayyad and Hanan Abdullah Raqib [41,42,43].  These two women were the wives of none other than Ali al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi himself and his deputy Sultan al-Qahtani, respectively [41,42].  These three families actually lived within the same apartment complex in Medina [42].  Between the arrest of his wife and the fact that she was apprehended with another man with the surname al-Ghamdi, it is easy to see that the press was confused about Ali al-Ghamdi’s potential capture in this incident [39].  Despite an early claim to success against his compatriots, the US and Saudis would have to wait for another chance at Ghamdi.

It was during this time that the Casablanca bombings in Morocco occurred on May 16.  This bombing raid, along with the Riyadh bombings, shoved militancy in the Arab world back yet again to the forefront of thought.  Of note, a Moroccan militant operative linked with Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, Karim al-Majati, who had acted as a lieutenant and logistician for Ayiri, was accused of participating in a logistics role in this attack as well as the Riyadh bombings [5,44,45].  Majati while entrenched with the Saudi Al-Qaida branch was by December 2003 sentenced in absentia to 20 years for his role in the Casablanca strike [44,45].  He was said to have provided some form of training for the suicide bombers that struck fairly close to his own home in the Moroccan capital; this was in addition to his role within AQSA [45].  Due to this disturbing sign of interconnected networks and attacks represented by Majati, Western authorities feared there would be a continuous string of these attacks through the Arab world.  The US and their allies needed some sort of breakthrough.  Abdulrahman al-Ghamdi, the father of the wanted Ghamdi, helped to potentially provide such a breakthrough.  He pleaded on June 16, 2003 through a Saudi newspaper for his son to regain his composure and turn himself in to the authorities [30,39].  This plea was issued shortly after it became apparent that Ghamdi was not in fact one of the men arrested in Medina.  Prince Naif and his son continued to claim some sense of victory due to the many men arrested thus far during the investigation of the attacks.  Still though, they had not made an arrest from List A. 

The next chapter displays a waypoint in the saga, in which the Saudi response increased in aggression, in order to match the violence, obstinance, and obsession with martyrdom of their militant prey. The summer of 2003 saw the Saudis engaged in a bitter counterinsurgency against their al-Qaida foes, in desperate hope of preventing the spread of dissent.

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