Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ISLAMIC JIHAD IN THE HIJAZ • 311ISLAMIC JIHAD IN THE HIJAZ. Also known as Hezbollah in theHijaz, this group and the Soldiers of Justice are both Islamic fundamentalistShi’ite groups under Iranian state sponsorship based inLebanon that have the revolutionary goal of overthrowing the SaudiArabian monarchy in favor of an Iranian-style Islamic republic. TheSaudi government has blamed the 1996 Khobar Towers bombingon this group.The previously unheard-of Islamic Jihad in the Hijaz group claimedcredit on 7 January 1989 for the murder of Salah Abdullah al Maliki,the third secretary of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Bangkok, Thailand,who was shot on 4 January 1989. Their announced motive wasto avenge the death of four of its members executed on 30 September1988. In this announcement the group identified itself as being, ineffect, an extension of Islamic Jihad, also known as Hezbollah, aShi’ite militia in Lebanon composed of Lebanese, Iraqi, and KuwaitiShi’ites under the tutelage of the Islamic Revolutionary GuardsCorps (IRGC) contingent in Lebanon. It is doubtful that the grouphas much of a grass-roots organization in Saudi Arabia itself, muchless in the Hijaz proper. The Shi’ite population of Saudi Arabia isestimated to range from 3 million to 4.5 million, out of a populationof perhaps 27 million largely Wahhabi Sunni Muslims. Most of theseShi’ites live on the shores of the Persian Gulf in the eastern provinceof al Hasa. There are few Shi’ite residents in the western provinceof Hijaz due to a conscious policy of exclusion of Shi’ites from theHijaz practiced from Ottoman times until the present.Antiregime violence by pro-Khomeini Shi’ites in the Hijaz hasinvariably been the work of Iranian or Kuwaiti Shi’ite pilgrims presentin the Hijaz only for the Hajj rituals. The Islamic Republic ofIran had been engaged in agitational propaganda against the Saudidynasty during the Hajj pilgrimages from 1979 until 31 July 1987,when Iranian-incited riots killed more than 400 people in Mecca.The following day, the official Islamic Republic News Agency ofIran announced that a new group, the “Hezbollah of the Hijaz,”had vowed vengeance against the Saudi regime for the events inMecca. The same day, an organized mob attacked the Saudi embassyin Tehran, causing the Saudi political attaché to fall from anupper story; he later died from his injuries. On 15 August 1987 anatural-gas plant in Saudi Arabia was bombed. While the Iranianregime hailed this as the work of Hezbollah in the Hijaz, the Saudis