Saudi Arabia along with Pakistan is emerging as a broad "strategic problem" for the United States as it tries to defeat terrorists while opening debate on social reform, General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the region, said on Thursday.
Abizaid likened the situation in Saudi Arabia to that in Pakistan where President Pervez Musharraf has survived two recent assassination attempts and is dealing with a challenge from al Qaeda and other terrorist elements.
He said that while Iraq and Afghanistan pose immediate problems for US forces in the region, "I would also tell you that the two broader strategic problems that we have to deal with, that must be dealt with in a broad range happen to be Pakistan and Saudi Arabia."
"Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are involved in their own fight against extremists," he said.
He said it was crucial that they "maintain control of the internal situation and develop in a way that is in consonance with the way people want them to develop."
"You see day after day an increase in military operations and terrorist operations in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi Arabian government is working very hard to defeat the terrorist threat," he said.
"And at the same time they are engaging their people in a way to have a dialogue that discusses those things that can be done to reform the society," he said.
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