2004-06-14

House of Saud divided against itself?

The Belmont Club gives credence to Michael Doran's theory, published in Foreign Affairs, that Saudi Arabia is in a "virtual state of civil war" between two factions: that of Crown Prince Abdullah and that of his half-brother, interior minister Prince Nayef. Abdullah tilts toward pro-Western reformism, while Nayef courts the islamist clerics.