WTF is the motivation for Al Queda to conduct an operation like this?
As I understand this, Osama has now started a war against his own country, one which is a principal sponsor and funding source for Wahabbi fundamentalism in particular and terrorists in general. This after the infidels have closed their air base on holy Islamic land, and the Saudis contributed to the ongoing success of Al Queda operations with their bland and noncommital response to the 5/12/2003 coordinated Riyadh strikes.

The May strikes at least made "sense," in the narrow meaning that that operation, directed as it was at a mostly-American target group in Osama's Holy Land, was consistent with his psychotic program of senseless maximal destruction inflicted on the west. I don't get what the hell he means to accomplish with this current operation. It's just noise, for sake of getting attention, a bit like a junior high student going on a shooting spree just because society's ignored and repressed him for too long, or some such similar nonsensical justification for gratuitous destruction. That this most recent atrocity does nothing to advance his larger cause is the only consolation which can be drawn.

Many Americans, myself among them, consider Saudi Arabia at best a declared neutral in the war on terror, and very likely a clandestine hostile. The state-funded mandrasses certainly are indirect contributors to the terrorist cause, and I've yet to hear about any really serious moves by the Saudis to freeze assets, or for them to crack down on local militant terrorists in any serious way. So, again, I ask what the hell Osama thinks he'll accomplish by attacking a nation which is probably more like his ally than his enemy in the war on terror? I just don't get it. It's a decision taken more in anger than as a practical strategic gesture. It's clear that our enemy is more a deranged psycho than a grand strategist.

The Saudi ruling family has been between a rock and a hard place for a while now, getting pressure from us to crack down on fundamentalism within their country and freeze assets being used to fund terrorist operations on the one hand; and on the other hand, facing a significant segment of their own population (the Wahabbis) who don't think the House of Saud is fundamentally pure enough for their tastes. If they don't realize it now, they will have to soon: appeasing terrorists, even if they represent a significant demographic within the country one rules, is no guarantor of safety. If Osama is going to pursue this line of activity, I would expect the Saudis to drift more toward being a clandestine friendly than a clandestine hostile, simply in their own attempts to stamp out this kind of mass murder in their own back yard. If this actually came to pass it would be a tremendous help in the war on terror.

JKS.

Update: Jim Lynch has a bit more on this, including some reaction from the Muslim world.