How an Al Qaeda hotbed turned inhospitable
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These jihadis have switched tactics as well, targeting intelligence officials. On Dec. 29, Lt. Col. Ibrahim al-Dhaleh parked his Lexus and stepped away just before it exploded. Earlier in the month, Maj. Gen. Abdelaziz al-Huweirini, the No. 3 in the intelligence service, was shot and wounded in Riyadh.
"We've got to recognize that we're fighting an ideology that springs out of a radical or xenophobic Islam," the Western diplomat says. "If we caught Osama bin Laden tomorrow, I am convinced Al Qaeda would be finished. But that won't end the war on terror. The ideology is entrenched in the Muslim world.... We will probably be battling this for the next generation."
Tomorrow: A spiritual fight against religious extremists.
Inside the walls of their tightly secured compounds, foreigners in Saudi Arabia are essentially sequestered from Saudis. But despite toughened security measures, some residents say that Americans, in particular, are clearing out and leaving the country.
In the Al Yamama compound in Riyadh, which houses foreign workers who are helping develop this country, there are 370 connected, beige stucco townhouses - with two or three bedrooms. Near the center, there's a tiled open-air plaza with palm trees, surrounded by a grocery store, restaurant, flower shop, jewelry store, and preschool. A recreation room boasts raquetball, squash, and tennis courts as well as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. There's also a K-12 school.
"There are people here who hardly ever go off, or need to go off, the compound - especially now," says Jim Greenberg, an American businessman who's lived here for nearly 30 years. But, he adds, he and his wife, Lisa, have personally decided not to "change the way we live at all."
However, those who do go out generally travel in SUVs with tinted windows - mainly to prevent Saudis from seeing Western women inside who may not wear veils. "Inside that wall, I dress as I like," says Jan Quinn, an American expat who lives in a nearby compound.
She says life has drastically changed. For example, her four children who are attending school in the US are now afraid to visit. In fact, she says, this Christmas was the last they will spend together as a family in to Riyadh. Greenberg, though, still travels throughout the country and Riyadh - now home to 4.5 million where only 300,000 lived "in mud-brick homes" when he arrived some three decades ago.
Greenberg he also says that most of his colleagues have changed their habits - or left. There aren't exact numbers on US expatriates living in Saudi Arabia today, nor is there a historical record. The US Embassy here puts the number of Americans in Saudi Arabia today at about 30,000.
Greenberg, though, says he's seen the number diminish greatly over the years - especially after the May and November attacks. "This was probably an 80 percent American compound at one time," he says. "I suspect it's not more than about 20 to 25 percent now." One telling example, he says, is the school. When his four children left "a few years ago," the school was K-9 only and taught 2,200 kids. Today the school is K-12 and houses only 1,050 students.
