What wave of suicide attacks means for Riyadh's anti-terror efforts
July 4 saw three consecutive attacks against Saudi Arabia, suggesting an infrastructure of terrorism has developed inside the kingdom that authorities must confront.
King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has a long-established record of leading popular campaigns to raise funds for Islamic causes. Saudi Arabia has been accused of poor oversight of such funding with some money ending up in terrorist hands. It has made considerable progress on this issue, but more still needs to be done. The three bomb attacks July 4 should encourage the king to take tougher measures to combat terrorism funding at home.
In December 1967, King Faisal created the Popular Committee for Support of Martyrs, Families and Mujahedeen in Palestine in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. He choose his half-brother, Prince Salman, who was already the governor of Riyadh, to chair the committee. At first, the committee raised a modest $5 million a year, but by 1978, that had doubled to $10 million. In 1982, during the civil war in Lebanon, it spiked to $45 million. The king remains the committee chairman today and has contributed considerable funds himself, including a check for $100,000 in 2001 for the family of Muhammad al-Durrah, the 12-year-old whose death in the second intifada sparked outrage in the Arab world.
