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.
The dissension goes back to early 2003, before the start of the attacks that began in May of last year and quickly rattled the desert kingdom, helping to drive up the price of oil worldwide.
On the run after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, top al Qaeda leaders including bin Laden and chief ideologue Ayman Zawahiri pressed local operatives in Saudi Arabia to launch an offensive to destabilize the royal family. Local leaders in the kingdom had been building cells and amassing weapons for more than a year, but asked for more time, saying they were unprepared for an all-out assault on the Saudi government and were worried about a public backlash, officials here said.
After a debate, bin Laden ordered the local cells to go ahead with the strikes anyway, officials said. "The internal guys here thought it would be a mistake because it would foul their own nest," said another Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They were overruled, but they were right -- it has fouled their own nest."
While the opening attack -- a May 2003 car bombing of a compound in Riyadh housing Westerners -- caught the government off guard, the al Qaeda cells had difficulty sustaining themselves as Saudi security personnel began arresting hundreds of suspected militants.
"It immediately condemned their ship," said Nawaf Obaid, head of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an independent institute that is preparing to publish a study, along with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, about the al Qaeda terrorist threat in the kingdom. "They weren't ready for it. They didn't have the support or the manpower that they originally thought they could muster."
Another turning point came last April, when militants detonated a car bomb in front of a five-story police building in Riyadh, killing four people and injuring about 150. Unlike previous attacks, most of the casualties were Saudi civilian employees, prompting many Saudis to rally around the government.
Soon after, al Qaeda began shifting its targets to avoid Saudis. In May, militants attacked a Western compound in the oil-producing city of Khobar, killing 22 civilians. Gunmen burst into a residential and office compound, looking for hostages and shouting, "Where are the Americans?" The next month, three U.S. military contractors were killed after assailants followed them home from work in Riyadh.
On Dec. 6, gunmen mounted a direct assault on one of the most prominent U.S. targets in the kingdom: the consulate in Jiddah, a half-century-old building overlooking the Red Sea. During the middle of a three-hour gun battle and standoff with Saudi police, the assailants made it a point to lower the U.S. flag flying outside the consulate's main entrance and light it on fire.
The flag was singed, but not destroyed, and embassy personnel raised it again later that day. But U.S. officials said it was clear that the militants had placed a renewed emphasis on attacking American symbols in an effort to drum up support.
