alternatehistory.com

This is my first thread, so I apologize for any roughness. I was watching The Kingdom again this morning, and was inspired to propose this scenario, since I hadn't really seen done before.

When Osama bin Laden returned from Afghanistan in 1990, he was praised in the Saudi press as a 'hero of the jihad', who had, along with al-Qaeda, "brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union. With Iraq invading Kuwait, bin Laden went to the Saudi Minister of Defense, Prince Sultan and offered to defend Saudi Arabia using al-Qaeda, instead of having non-Muslim troops entering Saudi Arabia:

[Bin Laden:] "I am ready to prepare 100,000 fighters with good combat capability within three months. You don't need Americans. You don't need any other non-Muslim troops. We will be enough."

[Prince Sultan:] "There are no caves in Kuwait. What will you do when he lobs missiles at you with chemical and biological weapons?"

[Bin Laden:] "We will fight him with faith."


Historically, he was rebuffed, and went on to denounce the reliance of the Saudi government on American military power, and his increasing criticism eventually lead to the government trying to silence him, leading to his moving to Sudan with his terror network.

But what if Prince Sultan had agreed to his proposal, and instead of coalition forces, it was al-Qaeda who faced off against the Iraqis? I don't know if it would be a case of political ASB for such an occurrence to happen, but what might some of the outcomes be of this situation?
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