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UK House of Commons - Foreign Affairs Select Committee

Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism

2 July 2006

Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-186)

DR MAI YAMANI

2 NOVEMBER 2005

Q180 Sir John Stanley: Dr Yamani, of the obviously very small minority of Saudis that have been drawn into, and have become actively involved in terrorism—you gave the figure that 61% of the jihadis from outside Iraq come from Saudi Arabia—in your view does that group have any common denominators? Do they come from a particular region or town? There was a suggestion you made that a certain family might be producing more than a large quota of terrorists. Do they come from particular economic groups? What are the common denominators, if any, that lie behind those who have been drawn into terrorism from Saudi Arabia?  

Dr Yamani: Initially, on 9/11, the 15 out of 19 hijackers who were Saudi, five came from Hijaz, and 10 from Asir. That is where Osama bin Laden comes from, and he refers to himself as a Hijazi with Yemeni origin. That whole region is very connected to Yemen as well. At the beginning of the jihad initiative in the eighties the majority who went for jihad in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet infidels were from that region. Interestingly, this has become more spread out and many of the tribes in the north have joined. The thing has grown, like some cancer that went into the country. At the moment, they are from most regions and classes, except the Shi'a. A Shi'a told me last year, when I was doing some research: "Prince Naif, the Minister of the Interior, brought his Salafi Wahhabis to guard the oil region and Dammam and other oil cities because he did not trust us, and got us out." You know about the tensions between the Salafi, Wahhabi and the Shi'a who are considered apostate and heretical. They have remained outside this jihadi movement. In fact, it is interesting that since 9/11 terrorism internationally—and look at Iraq—has become a Sunni enterprise; and the Shi'a, who used to be the more violent among Muslims—and this is very important for Saudi Arabia—in fact as a threat to the regime—the balance of power between the Shi'a and the Sunni in the Muslim world, but in that region and especially in relation to oil—people are worried about the Shi'a presence. This balance of power has changed for good since the war on Iraq. This is a challenge for the Saudi regime, which is very strongly, militantly Sunni/Salafi. I could not say who. Was it a problem of a sense of discrimination? How many people felt, or perceived themselves to be marginalised politically or economically? Certainly the group who went on 9/11 were not poor; none of them were. But the people who are joining see themselves as deprived, and the motives are very strange. Two weeks ago in the Herald Tribune there was an article about the fatwas online and how this particular fatwa on a Saudi website forbid the playing of football by the rules. To give the details of why they should not play like the infidels, a young athlete, football player, who was 21 years old, ended up in Iraq. He has gone for jihad. The educational system has gone through some reforms and they did cut out some of those defensive parts from it; but there are still a lot of websites and a lot of fatwas, and the whole atmosphere is still conducive to this type of mentality and they need to cross the border to find their brothers; and then they come back with more anger. That is why I keep thinking of more inclusive, more serious reforms.

Q181 Mr Maples: If one steps back and looks at the strategic picture in the Gulf at the moment, it seems to be shifting, interestingly, as you said, in favour of the Shi'a; but secondly in a quite dangerous way from the point of view of the West and oil supplies and that sort of thing where you have what seems to me to be a very radical government in Iran at the moment, which has taken steps backwards from where they were two or three years ago. It looks as though they are going to end up controlling southern Iraq, or have a proxy government in southern Iraq. It looks as though the Iranians will have a proxy, or very friendly government at least in southern Iraq, where most of the oil is. You have Iran apparently developing nuclear weapons, although we do not know for sure. We therefore end up with a very strong Iran, developing nuclear weapons, being extremely unfriendly to the West; a fragmented and weak Iraq, with its oil supplies in a region where the Iranians have a huge amount of influence, if not control it; and our one remaining friend in the region is Saudi Arabia. I have for a long time been an advocate of pursuing reform in Saudi Arabia, but are we not running a danger—the Americans, the French, the West—of having all three major countries in the Gulf region, the three major oil suppliers as well, in extremely unfriendly hands?  

Dr Yamani: Saudi Arabia has—you could use the word "benefited in terms of oil, from the problems in Iraq. When it comes to oil, if there was an attempt to minimise dependency on Saudi oil by freeing Iraq, this has been delayed because we know that Iraq has not even been back to the pre-war quota, or is not making any difference in the market because of the violence. Saudi Arabia remains the biggest oil producer of the world, and the ruling family are fulfilling their role in increasing capacity and answering all the demands, especially from the United States. The ruling family know that the Bush administration—even if it was Democrats—will do everything to protect the Saudi regime. The only problem is that this security umbrella is leaking. The most important thing is that the Saudis themselves have to deal with their security problems. When it comes to the influence of Iran, for the first time after all the silence about the war in Iraq, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, three weeks ago talked about the danger of the Iranian interference and influence in southern Iraq. That is real, and it does threaten the Saudi hegemony as the leading Sunni state; but also in the long term, in terms of the oil producers, they do not want to be marginalised. When you are looking at the region, it is certainly Saudi Arabia that is the country that has stability, and the oil supply. The oil installations in Saudi Arabia are said to be secure. Most people say that they are very heavily guarded. Despite the fact that Osama bin Laden in 2004 called for attacks on oil installations in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and Al-Zawahiri has reiterated the same thing. That seems to be secure. For the next five years, Saudi Arabia—you have the bad, evil Iran; you have an evil Syria—you have the axis of evil and you have the axis of oil. The axis of oil is treated very carefully. Do not push them. It is an Islamic country. It is all right if there are some abusers because you do not want to push them; and the axis of evil is treated differently.

Q182 Mr Maples: Two members of the axis of oil, Iraq and Iran, are now also members of the axis of evil, and this seems to me to be a large part of our problem. We are left with Saudi Arabia, which presumably will start to feel quite threatened by Iran.  

Dr Yamani: You have in your axis of oil—you have Qatar and gas in Qatar, and United Arab Emirates are still important, and Kuwait. You still have Bahrain, less so; but you still have a good group there of the axis of oil. But they are moving forward; they are protecting themselves—the Qataris are, despite Aljazeera.

Q183 Mr Purchase: The ones you have mentioned are reforming.  

Dr Yamani: They are reforming. The problem is that Saudi Arabia is, in a way, still stuck. The more the United States or Britain or the EU turn a blind eye to the very slow pace of reform, or this cosmetic reform, or what is going on inside the country, or the insurgents—we hear about Syria and its borders but we do not hear very much about Saudi Arabia. We do not hear very much about the role of Saudi Arabia in continuing to feed—they turned a blind eye for a very long time to the Islamists in their midst and the radical Islamists. But we, in the West, also turned a blind eye to the fact that they were producing them. The problem is, if you are looking at the Saudi Royal Family, that you have the old guys sitting there, sitting with their Wahhabis, and they cannot divorce from the Wahhabis. This has been the contract from the beginning that underpinned the foundation of the country in 1932.

Q184 Sandra Osborne: We are getting the clear idea that you are in favour of more serious reforms, but you have also discussed the concern for unity and stability. How fragile is the situation? Is there a danger that the push for reforms could completely destabilise the country?  

Dr Yamani: On the contrary. First, I have to say that I do not think there is a problem of stability at the moment. If you look at the next five years at least, you will see the Al-Saud rulers. The foundation is weak. There are still problems. I do not think that terrorism or the violence within the country at the moment poses any serious threats. Despite this outlining some of the dangers and the splits, and the breaking up of the country—we cannot see it now, but that would be really Shi'a demanding their own state. However, it depends on what happens in Iraq and the region. There are people in Mecca and Medina and that whole area that are very different. The reforms in the country would still be like a coalition of the different groups, new educated middle class, getting together in support of the Royal Family, as long as the Royal Family want to be sharing power, and being prepared to listen to their people and giving them better citizenship rights. Talks of constitutional monarchy, or areas where they should allow people to have more freedom of expression of assembly, of organisation, of more economic and political space in the country, in the long term would be the only solution. Repression rather than integration will not work in the long term, in the absence of high oil prices.

Q185 Sandra Osborne: Can I follow that up by asking you what the prospects are for reform as far as the place of women in the society is concerned? Is there a push for reform in that direction, and how does it compare with other more liberal countries in the area?  

Dr Yamani: In Saudi Arabia they blame everything on Islam because they have Mecca and Medina; so it is the only country in the world where women are not legally allowed to drive cars or travel between one city and another without permission of their guardian. Obviously, it is the only country where women are not allowed to vote. Women voted in Iraq and in Egypt, and the Palestinian women. The whole region had the vote, because this was somehow the year of the election; everybody had elections and women voted. This is not about Islam, because even at the beginning of the 20th century—and in Mecca, where I come from, the women did not have to go into black veils, and it was much more open and liberal. The fact is that they are imposing a more strict segregation of the genders, which we can see in the educational system; and they are imposing this on the women. Unemployment for women remains at 95%. There is some progress though; King Abdullah is planning to have more jobs created for women, but it is very gender segregated and still has to comply to the definition by the Wahhabi clerics of the nature of women.

Q186 Chairman: When King Abdullah was Crown Prince in 2002 he launched an initiative in the Middle East that was stalled because of other developments. Do you think that Saudi Arabia has a potential role at this moment, following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in moving to a position of playing a key role in a comprehensive settlement, including the road map and changing the politics in the region, for a two-state solution?  

Dr Yamani: There is talk that they want to be pioneers and go ahead with King Abdullah and his peace initiative. How is he going to manage it? Three years ago, when it was announced in Beirut, and Thomas Friedman wrote about it in the Herald Tribune and talked about normalisation, King Abdullah, Crown Prince at the time, had very big problems with this whole idea of normalisation with Israel. It is very important for the Al-Saud for Saudi Arabia to play a bigger role, regionally and internationally, in the peace initiative with Israel. How they are going to do it with this population is difficult to see. Paying money for the reconstruction of Gaza is easier. Economic reforms and paying money is always easier. The Palestinian problem has been used constantly by Saudi Arabia to delay reforms. "We cannot have reforms because of the Palestinian problem." King Abdullah of Jordan, when he spoke in Davos three years ago, said, "We have to wait until we have solved the Palestinian problems". All the members of the Arab league meet in Sharm-al-Sheikh or somewhere, and they all get together in their robes and talk to you about the Palestinian problems; and they all leave. They do not talk about internal reforms in their own countries, but about the Palestinian problems, and they did nothing to help the Palestinians.  

Chairman: We appreciate your time. Thank you. Our Committee members will be visiting Saudi Arabia in a few weeks' time. Others of us will be going to meet with the Israelis and Palestinians. We are very grateful to you for coming along.