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THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
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ARAB ALLIES Saudi Arabia, Egypt facing difficult role
By Dan Ephron, Globe Correspondent and Anthony Shadid Globe Staff, 9/15/2001
Their actions could have far-reaching implications for their relationships with the United States and their standing among citizens who have grown markedly less friendly to Washington during the past decade.
''Egypt and Saudi Arabia are frankly the leaders of the Arab world; there's powerful, powerful symbolism there,'' said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''They would be very, very important.''
Each, though, brings its own problems.
Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, whose country receives more than $2 billion annually in US aid, was among the first Arab leaders to commit troops to the US-led coalition in 1991 that forced Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait.
But today, Mubarak must take into account widespread anti-US sentiment in Egypt over Washington's support for Israel. With an internal rebellion by fundamentalist groups ending only recently, he also wants to avoid stirring the hornets' nest of Islamic militancy in his own country.
''Supporting American attacks carries political risk for Mubarak,'' said Tahseen Basheer, a former high-ranking Egyptian diplomat.
Egyptian officials have sharply condemned Tuesday's attacks and offered condolences for the victims. Mubarak - a close US ally since taking power after Islamic militants assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981 - said yesterday that he had been shocked to see on television the hijacked airliners slam into the World Trade Center towers, scenes that haunted him through the night.
But many Egyptians, while horrified by the carnage, view the attacks through the prism of the violence they accuse Israel of inflicting on the Palestinians.
''I was very disturbed to see the victims and the families. It was very sad,'' said Anwar Abdel-Hamid, an accountant who was outside al-Azhar mosque, one of Cairo's biggest. ''But we've seen these scenes every day from Palestine of children killed and their parents weeping.''
Those sentiments put Mubarak in a difficult situation, analysts say.
''People here have been very angry with the Americans for some time now,'' said Fahmy Howeidy, a columnist for Al-Ahram, Egypt's leading government newspaper. ''It's not only that President Bush has taken Israel's side. It's also that American weapons are used by Israel and that the administration is unwilling to get involved. President Mubarak cannot ignore this sentiment.''
Egypt's Islamic Jihad, the militant group behind Sadat's assassination, has ties with Al Qaeda, the terrorist network allegedly run by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. At least two of bin Laden's deputies are Egyptian.
A more likely source of opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic group. It renounced violent opposition to the government in the 1980s but remains opposed to ties with the United States, in particular an alliance against other Muslim countries.
Saudi Arabia finds itself in perhaps a more difficult situation, analysts say. It is home to Islam's two holiest shrines, in Mecca and Medina, and the Saudi royal family fashions itself as a defender of the faith.
The Saudi government owes its very existence to a 200-year-old alliance between a tribal dynasty and an austere, revivalist movement that practices one of the strictest interpretations of Islam in the Muslim world.
While it receives no official US aid, Saudi Arabia buys American weapons and has permitted the United States to maintain bases there since the 1991 Gulf War, a leading source of anger for Saudi dissidents like bin Laden.
In part as a gesture to its domestic critics, it remains prickly - in public, at least - to perceived transgressions of its sovereignty.
This summer, Saudi officials reacted angrily when the US government filed charges in connection with the 1996 bombing of an American military barracks there. They said Washington did so without first informing them.
Fourteen people, including 13 Saudi citizens, were charged in the bombing. Most of the people charged remain in Saudi Arabia. The attack on the Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran killed 19 Air Force personnel and, from early on in the investigation, US authorities complained about a lack of Saudi cooperation.
If the trail of this week's attacks on New York and Washington trace back to Saudi Arabia, the investigation could prove difficult.
''Governments are sovereign. People can come in and they can cooperate, but we have to understand that the Saudis are sovereign,'' said James E. Akins, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. ''The Saudis are going to have to be seen by their own people as the leaders of the investigation.''
For their part, Saudi officials have pledged full cooperation, and Crown Prince Abdullah reportedly has promised President Bush that the kingdom would help identify and pursue those behind the attacks.
So far, the United States has made no requests, State Department officials said.
''We would like them to tell us to do something, but they have not asked,'' said Gaafar Allagany, chief information officer at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. ''We cannot come to them and ask if we can do specific things.''
When that request comes, some analysts suggest, any country may find it difficult to turn it down, regardless of domestic opposition.
In the past, Egypt and Saudi Arabia ''haven't been all that responsive,'' said Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs. ''In the past, we haven't pushed that hard. This time, we're going to push hard.''
Ephron reported from Cairo; Shadid from Washington.
This story ran on page A9 of the Boston Globe on 9/15/2001.
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