11. The Broader Threat from Sunni Islamists in the Gulf
- Author:
- Michael Knights and Anna Soloman-Schwartz
- Publication Date:
- 07-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- On July 14, 2004, Bahraini security forces arrested seven suspected terrorists accused of planning "to carry out bombings on some government, economic, and tourist facilities to spread chaos and fear and harm the national economy and foreign investments." The arrests targeted a group of Sunni radicals of the extremist Salafi sect who had received their religious training in Saudi Arabia. This development marks an important geographical expansion of the terrorist threat in the Persian Gulf. It also highlights the potential for an emerging nexus between radical Islamist overspill from Saudi Arabia and a growing sense of Sunni disentitlement and traditionalist backlash in the modernizing smaller Gulf states.
- Topic:
- Security and Religion
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arab Countries, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates