After two bombings hit two soft targets in Saudi Arabia, the self-described Islamic State, or Daesh, has its sights set on Saudi Arabia, but the extremist group is unlikely to succeed in the Kingdom, writes Gulf expert Fahad Nazer.
Nazer, a Saudi writer based in the United States whose contributions are featured on CNN, Washington Post, and many other major U.S. outlets, notes that the extremist group’s attacks “might prove difficult to prevent in the short term, and could exacerbate sectarian tensions already inflamed by several bloody conflicts across the region” but says that in the long-term, “ISIS will not succeed in Saudi Arabia as it has in Syria or Iraq or in the way some al-Qa‘ida affiliates have in Yemen, Somalia, northern Mali, or Nigeria.”
“These terrorist organizations have flourished when at least one of two conditions has existed: a political and security vacuum caused by internecine ethnic or sectarian fighting in a failed state, or a credible narrative in which the country’s Sunni inhabitants—majority or minority—are portrayed as being under attack by another sect. Neither of these conditions exists in Saudi Arabia, and therefore ISIS will fail in its bid to upend the political order there.”
[Click here to read the full piece on the Middle East Institute website]
