The crackdown by the country's security forces is severely weakening the ability of terrorist organizations to move about freely and raise funds to help them launch possible future attacks in the Kingdom. This is the view of some political analysts Monday in the wake of the discovery in Riyadh of a huge cache of arms and ammunition linked to an Al-Qaeda cell. Members of the cell were arrested in August and investigations by Saudi authorities are ongoing. “Terrorists are living under pressure due to the sustained attack they are under from the government and the public. This has served to weaken their resolve and force them into making random moves that can easily be discovered,” said Dr. Ali Al-Tawati, a political analyst. Al-Tawati said that evidence of the weakening of terror organizations is the age of many of the weapons unearthed two days ago. “These weapons are old and were planned to be used by Al-Qaeda members. This means that the possibility of an effective attack has become very limited,” he added. Al-Tawati said that Saudi Arabia is being affected by the conflict in neighboring Iraq and Yemen. The Al-Houthi rebels in the north of Yemen have played an important role in facilitating the movement of terrorists in and out the Kingdom. “The Kingdom's national security is being affected by having borders with countries like Yemen and Iraq, which are very difficult to control,” Al-Tawati explained. Dr. Waheed Hashim, a political analyst from Jeddah, explained that Al-Qaeda is seeking to exploit young, poor and unemployed members of society. “Unemployed youth who are feeling depressed are very easy to be brainwash and persuaded to follow Al-Qaeda's misguided ideology. However, starting a national dialogue directed at this group of people and solving the unemployment problem are the keys to fighting terrorism,” Hashim said. He added that terror organizations can no longer rely on getting funding using charity as a ruse.
