JEDDAH, (Reuters) – A suicide bomber failed in his attempt to kill the prince who heads Saudi Arabia’s anti-terrorism campaign, the first attack on a member of the royal family since the start of a wave of violence by al Qaeda six years ago.
Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the deputy interior minister and son of the man thought likely to be the next crown prince, was meeting well-wishers on Thursday when a man blew himself up, a ministry spokesman said. The prince was not seriously hurt.
“The attack indicates that the threat is out there waiting to happen — sometimes at closer range than you would think,” said one Western diplomat in Saudi, who declined to be named.
“The royals will have plenty of reasons to worry in a country where weapons apparently find easy entry from porous borders to the north from Iraq or the south from Yemen.”
As security chief, Prince Mohammed is one of the most powerful men in the kingdom and is credited with the government’s success in crushing the violence.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest petroleum exporter and a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, was forced to confront its own role in rising militancy at home and abroad when its nationals turned out to be behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The mastermind of those attacks, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was born in Saudi Arabia.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi arm of the group, claimed responsibility for Thursday’s bombing attempt, according to a message posted on Islamist internet forums and translated by SITE Intelligence Group.
Interior ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said security measures would not be increased after the apparant breach, which occured after the prince ordered guards not to search the militant, who had insisted he was giving himself up.
“The security will not be heightened more than it is at the moment. We have always been saying that we expect (such acts) and act as though they may happen at any moment.”
Royals in Saudi Arabia are obliged to receive visitors during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
The Saudi official news agency said the bomber, whom it did not name, was the only casualty. The attack took place in Prince Mohammed’s private office in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.
The incident serves to underscore the possibility of attacks in the kingdom itself. Saudi officials have expressed concern that neighbouring Yemen, embroiled in a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives, could become a staging ground.