Most terrorists, regardless of the organizations they are affiliated with, believe that the unified government of Saudi Arabia is blasphemous. They no longer look to it as a legitimate representative of Islam and thus target the Saudi kingdom with terrorism in the name of pledging allegiance to the mother organization of terrorism Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda.
“The message behind Saudi Arabia sentencing to death several convicts affiliated with al-Qaeda is making a bold statement to all those attempting to defile the country’s sovereignty, tries to terrorize its community, or even try to spark civil strife,” the Saudi analyst Ali al-Qasmy told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The two convicts Nimer al-Baqmi and Adel al-Dubaiti were sentenced to death by the Saudi Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) while a number of their other affiliates, belonging to an 86 member terror cell, had varying sentences issued between 15 to over 30 years of imprisonment.
The two convicts allegedly participated in the 2004 Khobar terror massacre, in which six terrorists scaled the walls of Oasis 3 residential compound, along with other numerous and various terror attacks threatening civilian lives and the Kingdom’s security.
Al-Qasmy also said “Riyadh plays a strategic part in the fight against ISIS, if al-Qaeda is ever defeated after the long battle of challenges, ISIS will be taken down within the same scenario under the condition of collaboration working on a broader scope”.
“Multiple regions have suffered ISIS’ terror in different levels and phases illustrated in a painful image of bloodshed. Saudi Arabia is not far from overcoming it, and quietly eliminating the scene locally, despite that the journey towards ISIS’s elimination would surpass the difficulty present in the elimination of al-Qaeda. The reason behind the difficulty is that the challenge of ISIS was nurtured in an atmosphere filled with contradiction, change, and squaring of debts that effected several sides, not to mention that ISIS has also taken advantage of those who have lost hope of a quiet life, those traumatized, and the youth. The hunting down and tracking of those social categories and monitoring their ideology remains a tedious costly and time consuming process.”