According to a leading Saudi dissident living in London there are a growing number of attacks on foreigners in the country - four in the past few days - which are being covered up by the regime. Dr Saad Al Fagih speaks for the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia.
He says the attacks show that Saudi Arabia is increasingly internally unstable; if true that is an alarming prospect for the west: Saudi Arabia's oil reserves make it critically important to the world economy.
Oil has not figured large in the debate since the September 11 attacks. But the subsequent crisis has enveloped the region that remains the most important source of the raw material which keeps the western economies afloat. And among the oil producers Saudi Arabia is pre-eminent.
That means that the west has a huge vested interest in the political stability - and political orientation - of the regime that runs Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Royal Family have been loyal friends of the west; but there are signs that underneath the apparently placid surface there are deep tensions in Saudi society.
In his north London living room one of the leading exiled opponents of the Saudi Royal family - Dr Saad Al Fagih - showed me one of the many web sites that play host to animated debates among Saudis about the current crisis. He says opinion is overwhelmingly against the bombing of Afghanistan and sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. And lately he's noted something new.
Dr al Fagih says that in the past week there have been at least four attacks on western targets in Saudi Arabia. They've all been relatively minor - but, he says, something far more serious is brewing - there are strong rumours that al Qaeda supporters in Afghanistan are going to attack a Saudi or Western target in the country.
Avoiding a crisis in Saudi Arabia means handling Saudi sensitivities carefully - in particular, says Dr Mai Yamani of the Royal Institute for International Affairs - acknowledging the importance of the issues that animate the Saudi man in the street.
The nightmare scenario would be if - through the clumsy use of military force - the west provoked a reaction that de-stabilised Saudi Arabia.
Clearly the overriding western self interest is to avoid anything that might de-stabilise Saudi Arabia; Already, according to some albeit self-interested opponents of the regime, the situation there is fragile. If that's true getting the next move in the crisis right is of critical importance.
