Fahd, the first son of Hassa Sudairi…
2003 CE
Fahd, the first son of Hassa Sudairi after her remarriage to the founder of the kingdom, Ibn Sa'ud, had become king of Saudi Arabia n 1982.
In 1990, after Iraq's invasion of neighboring Kuwait, Fahd had reversed a long-standing policy and invited Western and Arab forces to deploy in Saudi Arabia in support of the Saudi defense forces.
In Saudi Arabia, we find a Muslim and an Arab state that is potentially on the verge of civil war.
It should be lost on no one that fifteen of the nineteen alleged hijackers involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001 were identified as Saudi Arabian nationals—Arabs, but not Saudis, as this is a term applied to Saudi Arabia's ruling Saudi-Wahhabi clan, which boasts some thirty thousand princes.
The only dramatic domestic challenge to the monarchy since the Second World War took place when followers of a religious extremist seized the Al-Haram mosque (Great Mosque) in Mecca, the holiest site in the world for Muslims.
However, there is tremendous, though underreported, unrest in Saudi Arabia, mostly directed against the perceived incompetence and corruption of the Saudi rulers, and in opposition to the establishment of U.S. military bases on the Arabian Peninsula.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has become a debtor nation, borrowing money to finance social programs, which remain underfunded due to declining oil revenues and corruption.
The general population is violently anti-American and are said by Western observers to live in fear of the monarchy, which they apparently despise.