The House of Saud has always had two faces. For two hundred years, they've fostered violence and terrorism on the one side, and posed as a stabilizing force on the other. In this particular case, at least one of those arrested was a member of al-Qaeda, which is not
merely a Wahhabi extremist group, but is also highly critical of the royal family. As for the impact of these arrests:
Given the highly important roles the three arrested individuals played within the global jihadist community and especially in the online arena, it may seem that the Saudis have struck a devastating blow to al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and other jihadist groups. Unfortunately, though, there has been a minimal impact on the jihadist movement. While the Saudis announced the arrests in early June, the jihadists were in fact captured in mid-March. Since then, the online jihadist infrastructure remains strongly intact, and, in fact, growing.
