Abstract

The major player in the OPEC international oil industry cartel, Saudi Arabia is also the homeland of the Prophet Muhammad and the center of the Muslim world with the most sacred Islamic sites located in and around the cities of Mecca and Madina. To the non-Saudi, the kingdom appears remarkably calm and stable, at least by the standards of the Middle East. But the rise of a new type of international terrorism, personified by exiled Saudi Osama bin Laden and with extensive roots in post- Gulf War Saudi Arabia, testifies to a volatile underground of discontent within the kingdom. Ideological frustration with the Saudi regime's perceived submission to American imperialism has merged with Saudi Arabia's chronic social and economic inequality to create an increasingly unstable situation.