The latest blast abruptly raises the stakes

Terrorists strike at oil's heart
Nicolas Rothwell, Middle East correspondentMarch 21, 2005
The Australian

THE suicide car bomb that gutted a suburban theatre in Doha yesterday, killing one and injuring 12, marks a new phase in the creeping spread of terrorism into the Gulf states – the critical yet vulnerable heart of the world oil industry.The attack on this soft target in the Qatar capital has yet to be claimed, but it is widely believed to be the work of the Islamist fighting cells already active in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which have both been plagued by bombings in the past 12 months.
The latest blast abruptly raises the stakes. Qatar, a small, distinctly liberal-accented city-state, perched above the world's largest natural gas reserves, represents the future of global energy supply, rather than its present.
The country is in the midst of a large-scale economic expansion supported by expatriate experts – the targets of the weekend attack, which struck a theatre full of Westerners watching a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
One English citizen was killed, the theatre was reduced to rubble and the staff members of a British school directly opposite were evacuated.
At a stroke, a new estimate of the security context in the Gulf is required.
The Saudi kingdom is already engaged in elaborate counter-terror policing, and has raised visible security on the streets of its major cities.
In Kuwait, a recent upsurge of Islamist attacks has transformed the country's sense of distance from the crisis in neighbouring Iraq. The contagion has now spread to Qatar, a desert peninsula bordered by Saudi Arabia and insulated by its pragmatism from the wilder debates of Arab politics.
Much about the attack's site and timing is suggestive. Qatar is celebrated as the home of Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite network that has transformed the airwaves of the Arab world, and has also become the chief transmission channel for messages from militants and associates of al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden.
The country was the base camp for the US invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 – the second anniversary of which was marked by huge rallies around the world at the weekend. It is also the Gulf state with the closest informal ties to Israel – and if a long-term peace deal is struck between the Israelis and Palestinians, Qatar would be the Arab nation most likely to follow suit and establish diplomatic ties with Jerusalem.
The bombing appears to have been, despite its devastating physical impact, less effective than at first feared: most of those in the theatre audience who were wounded have already left hospital, according to Doha authorities.
Only the car-bomber and one victim were killed. The vehicle used in the attack was registered to an Egyptian, the Interior Ministry has determined: beyond that, little more is known.
Security chiefs, both in Qatar itself and in the wider region, are nervously aware of the spreading extent of the terror strikes under way against soft targets linked to Westerners.
Saudi and Kuwaiti officials had thought that a series of raids in late January had done much to roll up the Islamist networks in the Arab peninsula professing allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his cause: the Doha blast raises the possibility that a new group has proliferated there.
The further fear is that other attacks will follow on relatively undefended locations frequented by Westerners in the Gulf's business cities.
The model for Doha's expansion is neighbouring Dubai, economic centre of the United Arab Emirates and the hub of the modern Arab high-technology sector.
Until now, the Islamist militants have presented the air of freelance fighters determined to mount assaults on Western diplomatic compounds or government ministries. But last week, a leader of al-Qa'ida in the Arab Peninsula group issued a call on an Islamist website, demanding that his fellow militants in the region should make strikes against "crusader" targets.
If a campaign against such civilian locations is continued, the nature of the expatriate societies of the Gulf, so vital to the region's economic development, will change forever – and the prospects for further liberalisation and progress towards democratic government are also likely to be affected.