As-Suwaidi (Riyadh)

As of 2005 more than 500,000 people lived in the area.[2] As of that year, many middle-income Saudis lived in Al-Suwaidi.[1] Many people migrating from the rural areas went to Al-Suwaidi during the "oil boom" in the 1970s and early 1980s.[1] Shaker Abu Taleb and Asharq Al-Awsat of the Arab News said in 2005 that the community "was originally beyond the capital's congestion; that is, however, no longer the case."[1] Bradley said that Al-Suwaidi has a reputation "for being a bastion of strict Wahhabism" within the people living in Saudi Arabia. Bradley added that the men "hardly need incitement" to contrast their own lives with wealthy Saudi princes and foreigners.[2]

The district gained notoriety in 2003 when a 26-man list of "most wanted terrorists" published by the Saudi government contained 15 men who were said to have links with the neighborhood.[1][3] Shaker Abu Taleb and Asharq Al-Awsat of the Arab News said that many Saudis compared Al-Suwaidi to Fallujah, Iraq, a site of fighting during the Iraq War.[1]

Ibrahim al-Rayyes, a terrorist suspect killed in a shootout with police, lived in Al-Suwaidi. In a 2003 list of most wanted Islamic fundamentalist militants, al-Rayyes and about 14 of the 26 other suspects had either come from or lived in Al-Suwaidi. More than half of those suspects were graduates of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University.[4]

The district and its involvement in terrorist activities feature in multiple works, e.g.:

• The Kingdom (2007), starring Jamie Foxx
• Traitor (2008), starring Don Cheadle