The murder of Mr Anthony Christopher Higgins, a 59-year-old Irish civil engineer, in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh this week is a grave indication of the threat to the everyday security of the many foreign personnel working in its economy.
He appears to be the latest victim of a campaign by Islamic terrorist groups directed against expatriate oil industry executives, US military, Saudi security forces and, indeed, western representatives in general which has become much more vicious.
This campaign has finally convinced the Saudi authorities that they have a real problem with domestic subversion directed at the country's extensive international community, which is an essential part of its overall economy. Mr Higgins's murder is being blamed on the same organisations responsible for a series of car bombs on western residential compounds last year, which were contained by the police. This year, attacks have been concentrated on foreign oil company offices, including a horrifying one at al-Khofar in the heart of the oil industry, in which 31 Saudi and foreign personnel were killed. It was followed by the public beheading of an American technician working for a helicopter firm.
These events have turned international attention on Saudi Arabia, raising questions about the vulnerability of its ruling regime and sharply reminding those concerned with its future that 15 of the 19 people responsible for the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington were Saudis. The regime is based on a long-standing coalition between the ruling House of Saud, an extensive network of more than 5,000 princely families, and the extreme Muslim fundamentalist Wahhabi religious establishment which controls social life, education and the justice system. It is much more stable than many assume, notwithstanding the growth of a large middle class, whose standards of living have recently been affected by falling incomes, higher unemployment and the diversion of huge sums to sustain the ruling families and a bloated military budget.
Those responsible for these attacks bitterly resent the intrusion of modernity and what they regard as the regime's abject dependence on the United States. They want to destroy those links and wrench the world's largest oil reserves from western control. Their numbers are swelled by the Islamic extremism which is part and parcel of the ruling ideology. Reformist movements and ideas are stifled in these circumstances. Looking ahead the prospects of peaceful change - however necessary - look bleak, blocked by factional struggles and repression. Mr Higgins's death appears to be a sad reminder of these intractable and dangerous realities.