Saudi executions driven by fear of militancy, signal combative policy
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s execution of four prominent Shias and dozens of Al Qaeda figures appears to have been based on a calculation that the kingdom could crush support for Sunni jihadists without alienating more moderate Sunnis.
Riyadh knew its execution of Nimr al-Nimr and three other Shias for involvement in police deaths would prompt protests abroad, but seemed to calculate that, within the kingdom at least, the consequences would be controllable.
By killing the four Shias, Saudi Arabia was telling its Sunni majority it was still on their side. By also executing the 43 Al Qaeda figures, Riyadh was sending a message that it intends to destroy any support for their militant Sunni cause.
The kingdom’s severing of ties with Iran on Sunday — after demonstrators stormed its embassy in Tehran in protest at the execution of Nimr — also underlined an assertive new foreign policy to counter Tehran under King Salman’s year-old monarchy.
Riyadh is relying less on the US security umbrella, convinced it has to compensate for the perceived disengagement of a US administration unwilling to do the heavy lifting on Middle East security.
“Enough is enough. Again and again Tehran has thumbed its nose at the West. They continue to sponsor terrorism and launch ballistic missiles and no one is doing anything about it,” said a source familiar with the Saudi government’s thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The execution on Saturday of the 43 Sunni jihadists followed a series of bombings and shootings in which more than 50 Saudis have been killed since late 2014.
Awadh al-Qirni, a prominent Sunni cleric who backs the government against the jihadists, tweeted that the executions were “a message to the world and to criminals that there will be no snuffing out of our principles and no complacency in our security”.
The Al Saud ruling family regard the expansion of Shia Iran’s influence in the Middle East as a threat to their security and to their ambition of playing the leading role among Arab states.
Inside the kingdom, however, it is the threat of a rebellion by the majority Sunnis that most alarms a dynasty whose rule is based on conservative support at home and an alliance with the West.
All past threats to the Al Saud, dating back to the 1920s, have been caused by conservative Sunni anger at modernisation or ties with the West.
That was why the Al Qaeda uprising that began in 2003, and attacked the Al Saud by turning its own conservative Salafi brand of Sunni Islam against it, was such a danger. It is why the jihadist movement’s latest iteration, the militant Islamic State group, is also a problem.
While the IS seems to lack real support among Saudis, some may sympathise with its broader goals, approving of its rhetoric against Shias and the West and its criticism of corruption among the Al Saud.