The Kingdom has indisputably made progress in routing out al-Qaeda (Group Profile) members who have executed attacks. Its intelligence and security services have been able to capture or kill a respectable number of militants, including former leaders Abdal-aziz al-Muqrin and Yousif al-Aiyeri, who between them were responsible for the May 2003 compound attack (Terrorist Incident), the November 2003 compound attack (Terrorist Incident), the murder of 10 people at oil contracting offices in Riyadh this May (Terrorist Incident), the al-Khobar attacks that killed 22, in May (Terrorist Incident), and the executions of Kenneth Scroggs (Terrorist Incident), Simon Cumbers (Terrorist Incident), Roberts Jacobs (Terrorist Incident), and Paul Johnson (Terrorist Incident) this June. Saudi has also made commendable inroads in the battle to stop terrorist financing, bringing traditionally opaque Islamic charities under scrutiny and passing anti-money laundering laws that meet and exceed international standards.

Unfortunately, these measures will not stop terrorism in the Kingdom. It takes as little as $10,000 to build a large truck bomb, and AK-47s brought over the border from Yemen can cost as little as $40-50 a unit. Despite superficial efforts, the Saudi state still plays the most vital role in creating terrorism. The Kingdom is a willing and zealous incubator of militants; it is not a simple matter of extreme religiosity enforced upon the populace by the state-salaried Imams, Sheikhs, and religious scholars. The problem is not religion or even religiosity but rather a state-sponsored culture of hate unparalleled in the modern world. Anti-Christian and anti-Jewish rhetoric permeates every facet of the public sphere from the rhetoric of political officials to state-sponsored television to the public schools. Rarely does an endorsement of violence against non-Muslims in the Kingdom attract any government criticism.