Richard Sale is a terrorism correspondent for United Press International.

The nearly simultaneous bombings of three expatriate housing compounds in eastern Riyadh on May 12 marked an escalation of al-Qaeda's terror campaign from targeting American interests to targeting the Saudi royal family, say serving and former US intelligence officials. Of the 34 killed, eight were Americans, and nine were Saudis, including one member of the royal family. "This is a dramatic change of tactic," said one former State Department official, explaining that al-Qaeda operatives have attacked US targets in the kingdom before, but "have never really gone for Saudi nationals." The attacks, which were executed with military precision, have also raised serious concerns in Washington about the infiltration of Saudi security and military forces by Osama bin Laden's followers.

The latest attacks targeted three expatriate housing compounds: Al-Hamra, which consists mainly of non-Saudi Arabs; Jadawal, which houses American civilians who work at US military bases and defense firms; and Vinnell, which houses employees of the Vinnell Corp., a Virginia-based company that trains the Saudi National Guard.

Former DIA official Pat Lang says that the attacks were "well thought-out." All three bombings were nearly simultaneous and used the same technique. According to eyewitness reports, the attackers (at least some of whom wore National Guard uniforms) attacked and killed guards at the gates to the compounds, then drove vehicles packed with explosives inside and detonated them. The hardest hit compound was at al-Hamra, where an eyewitness said he saw a white pick-up truck moving into the compound with a man running in front of it, firing a Kalashnikov assault rifle. According to this eyewitness account, the driver suddenly threw the truck into reverse and backed it up into the compound's recreational center. At Jadawal, which also suffered extensive structural damage, an eyewitness described a "lonely little guard who had a shootout with the terrorists and kept the truck from ramming the back gate and entering the compound." The truck was forced to explode at the gate itself, saving many lives.

American intelligence officials say that the attacks demonstrated that the terrorists had detailed insider knowledge. "It's become pretty clear that the Saudi military security forces, especially the National Guard, are riddled with bin Laden operatives or sympathizers," said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro. Another senior US intelligence official told MEIB that the attacks had been planned for over three months and that they displayed "ingenuity and a vast amount of knowledge" about the layout of the compounds, security procedures, and personnel.

Dozens of US investigators, including CIA and FBI personnel, who have entered Saudi Arabia since the attack are focusing their efforts not simply on tracking down the bombers, most of whom escaped, but also on beefing up Saudi counterterrorism capabilities. On May 6, Saudi police botched an attempt to arrest suspected militants who were under surveillance near the Jadawal compound. Although the authorities seized 800 pounds of explosives and weapons during the raid, few precautions were put in place prior to the May 12 bombings.

The Vinnell Corporation

Seven of the eight Americans killed in the blasts were employees of the Vinnell Corp., a subsidiary of defense giant Northrop Grumman. The company's 300 American employees in the kingdom are mostly ex-soldiers, who train Saudi Guardsmen in brigade- and battalion-level tactics and the operation of Bradley fighting vehicles, anti-tank missiles, and other weapons systems. Vinnell's casualties were much lower because at least 50 employees were away on a training mission, US government officials said.

Founded in 1931 as a construction company, Vinnell was extensively involved in the building of US military bases during World War II and the conflict in Vietnam. During the 1970s, it was involved in key construction projects all over the Middle East, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The late former Vinnell vice-president Wilbur Eveland related in a series of 1988 interviews, and in his subsequent memoir, Ropes of Sand, that the company provided deep business cover for CIA operatives in sensitive areas of the world. Former senior CIA officials confirmed Eveland's account for MEIB. Since it was dependent on US government contracts, the company apparently had very little choice in allowing the CIA to insert its own deep cover operatives. "For a corporation to keep the money flowing, it has to play ball," says Bill Hartung, a senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute.

The company is also part of the nebulous underworld of Saudi-American relations, in which officials from both countries profit immensely. According to Pretap Chatterjee, an official with Washington, DC-based CorpWatch, Vinnell was controlled by interlocking ownerships that included people like Frank Carlucci, a senior CIA official and secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan and James Baker, Reagan's secretary of state. The corporate management set-up was done "in such a way as to disguise links to US military and intelligence agencies," Chatterjee said.

In March 1973, Vinnell was hired by the Department of Defense to modernize the Saudi National Guard as part of bilateral agreement between Riyadh and Washington. This "one-time" training mission evolved into a Pentagon-supervised contract under which Vinnell military specialists not only train Guardsmen, but also serve as on-scene consultants embedded with National Guard units. The depth of Vinnell's involvement may have more to do with its political connections than with results it has achieved on the ground. "They trained the guard for 30 years, but not well enough, apparently, to be able to effectively guard the Vinnell compound," said Cannistraro.

The National Guard is considered a bedrock of support for the monarchy. The 75,000-strong force is descended from Bedouin fighters who spearheaded the Al-Saud clan's takeover of the Arabian Peninsula early this century. Its chain of command is completely independent of the Defense Ministry and its soldiers are recruited from desert tribal areas, unlike the military, which primarily recruits urban-dwellers. In the mid-1990s, National Guard units were used to forcibly disperse anti-government demonstrations organized by radical Islamists. Not surprisingly, Vinnell has been targeted by al-Qaeda before. In November 1985, a bomb detonated at the headquarters of a US Army training program in which Vinnell was deeply involved, killing five Americans.

Since the Saudi military is considered loyal to Defense Minister Sultan - the principal rival of Crown Prince Abdullah in the kingdom's simmering succession struggle, Vinnell's involvement in Saudi Arabia is seen by some as an effort to shore up Abdullah's claim to the throne. Although Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced in late April that the US plans to withdraw all of its military forces from Saudi Arabia, Vinnell personnel are considered civilian contractors and are not scheduled to depart. Terrorism expert Jean-Francois Seznec at Columbia University called the latest bombings "a shot across the bow of Prince Abdullah by al-Qaeda."

Among some officials in Washington, the latest bombings have cast suspicions on the Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Nayef, who is aligned with Sultan against Abdullah. According to Cannistraro, Nayef "is not Western educated, has rarely been exposed to the West and hates foreigners, including Americans." It was Nayef who refused the FBI access to arrested militants who allegedly carried out the 1995 bombing and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in which 18 Americans were killed (the bombers were hastily convicted and executed).

Nayef's reaction to the latest bombings did little to comfort American officials. In an interview with Abu Dhabi television on May 15, the Interior Minister declared that the bombings were not a domestic problem. "Where do the terrorists spring from? Other countries . . . other countries that should dry up these sources." However, there is a consensus in Washington that this kind of obstructionsim will not be permitted this time around. "It's time for the United States to interfere in Saudi internal affairs," said a former senior State Department official, adding that the US should press for Nayef's removal.