Saudi Arabia is belatedly taking steps to discourage Saudi citizens from traveling to Syria to join al-Qaeda in the war against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. King Abdullah this month issued a royal decree banning travel abroad to join jihadist movements, and imposing jail terms of up to 20 years for violating the decree.
Estimates of the number of Saudis fighting in Syria range as high as 2,500. Some are hardened veterans of earlier jihads in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. A few are compatriots of Osama bin Laden. Others traveled to Syria from the kingdom, despite individual travel bans imposed for dissident activities at home. Some traveled directly through major Saudi airports, leading many observers to conclude they were encouraged by the authorities to leave the kingdom and go fight Assad. For over two years, the Saudi government seemed to turn a blind eye to travel by its citizens — even political dissidents — to Syria.
The royal decree has now been endorsed by Crown Prince Salman, the Council of Ministers and some senior Wahhabi clerics. Similar legislation is under review in Kuwait, which has also sent several hundred fighters to Syria and is a major source of private funding for Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official arm in Syria. Some Saudi sources claim that up to 20% of the Saudis who went to Syria have now come home, and the Saudi press has lauded the government for assisting their return.
Saudi sources cite two reasons for the change in policy. First is pressure from Minister of Interior Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who has led the fight inside the kingdom for the last decade against the al-Qaeda underground there. He is also a major figure in the Saudi campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen, which is a joint Saudi-Yemeni group. Prince Nayef knows the danger of coddling jihadists directly; they almost assassinated him a few years ago. It is likely the Ministry of Interior discovered evidence of plotting by Saudi jihadists in Syria to carry out attacks inside the kingdom similar to those carried out in 2004 to 2006 by Saudis returning from Afghanistan.
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