Al Qaeda - defeat in Saudi Arabia

The Washington Post reports on Al Qaeda's decline in Saudi Arabia.

While al Qaeda retains its primary goal of eventually toppling the Saudi royal family -- as Osama bin Laden made clear in an audio recording released Thursday -- an 18-month campaign of car bombings, gun battles and kidnappings has so far failed to generate many new recruits and has resulted in a backlash among many Saudis, even those who otherwise are critical of the government, the officials and experts said.

More than 80 people have died in the attacks, the majority of them Saudis or non-Western immigrant workers. Many people in the kingdom are not only angry over the bloodshed but also fearful of al Qaeda's attempt to turn Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative tribal society, into an even more conservative Islamic theocracy, several Saudi reformers said in interviews.

And

Internet postings monitored by Saudi intelligence show that al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers cannot agree on who is in charge these days, or even what strategy they should adopt to remain viable, officials said. The internal disputes have simmered for more than a year, but are now becoming more of a handicap for al Qaeda because it does not have a firm leadership in place, officials said.

So, will they heed bin Laden's latest call to topple the government? Can they?
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