Saudi Bomb Highlights How Arabs Remain Split on Curbing Islamic Foes

The Egyptian government is "enslaved," says Egyptian political columnist Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, a moderate commentator. "It's not free to act because of its own vested interest in not [letting] people open their mouths."

Algeria, however, once tried a more moderate approach. But after extremists won elections in 1990 and 1991, the military-backed government annulled the elections and undertook an ongoing war against them. Most recently, seven French Trappist monks were killed by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).

Bolstered by last November's election victory, Algeria's President Liamine Zeroual has chosen not to talk with the Islamists at the heart of the country's crisis.

And Algeria's security forces took the election result as a mandate to annihilate the GIA and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which have been waging a guerrilla war against the government and its supporters.

This pressure has split both Islamic groups into two factions, one side seeking dialogue, the other vowing to fight on. Meanwhile, the violence continues at the rate of 100 deaths per week, according to Western diplomats.

In 1991, as Algeria was on the verge of Islamic takeover, President Mubarak advised its government to follow the example of neighboring Tunisia: undermine the extremists by denying them a political voice.

Tunisia benefits from being a small country with a 70,000-strong security force that can comb the countryside. "We knew from the start that any mistakes would make us pay dearly," says Ousama Romdani, the government spokesman. "But we are not a police state."

In December 1990 the government claimed to have uncovered an Islamist plot to seize power. Some 8,000 Islamists were imprisoned, 200 cases of torture were identified by Amnesty International, and the disintegration of the Islamist "Al-Nahda" (Renaissance) organization began.

In Egypt, such a crackdown would be impossible. In Algeria, the killing continues.

Mubarak is influenced by Tunisia's model, even though suppression comes easier in a country of 9 million people, compared with Egypt's 60 million.

The denial of jobs to Islamist supporters in Tunisia is now thought to affect up to 10,000 people. "It's in the interest of everybody that the government opens a dialogue," says Moncef Ben Salam, a math professor and former member of Al-Nahda whose house in the southern town of Sfax is continually surrounded by police. He was among those accused of the 1990 plot.

Although Tunisia's approach has brought short-term gain, if Mr. Salam is any indicator, the long-term outlook may prove difficult: "There are thousands like me who are not allowed to work," says Salam. "They have nothing left in their lives. They have been thrown into the fire. Revolts don't happen suddenly. They happen little by little."

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