But the August arrest in Kuwait of groups allegedly plotting to attack the main U.S. Army base and an oil refinery, and the trial in the United Arab Emirates of a Lebanese-born American alleged to be linked to a group backed by al-Qaida underline the dangers of the jihadist threat.

On Jan. 29 Kuwait's security authorities arrested a man they said was a Saudi member of al-Qaida serving as a non-commissioned officer in the Kuwaiti army. He was suspected of recruiting around 20 men to the jihadist cause.

Jihadist violence has rippled through the Gulf since Sept. 11, 2001, though with little real success. In the sultanate of Oman in the southern Gulf, 31 suspected jihadists were jailed for 20 years in May 2005 for plotting to overthrow Sultan Qaboos.

Tough action by the Gulf states' intelligence services has hit the jihadists hard over the years, but not eliminated them. Western security officials in the region fear that recent events indicate that the jihadists may be planning to launch new attacks.

The U.A.E. has extradited a number of high-profile jihadist figures in recent years. These risked provoking retaliatory attacks, but no major strikes have been recorded.

Analysts believe that the emirates have been spared because they are too useful to the jihadists as a communications, logistics and financial center. Dubai is the Middle East's chief banking center, and its international airport is the busiest in the region.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the U.A.E. was identified as a major center used by al-Qaida to transfer funds to the suicide hijackers and as a surveillance hub to scout out new targets.

U.A.E. authorities responded by tightening up financial regulations to curb money laundering and questionable fund transfers.

Several senior al-Qaida figures, including the alleged mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden Harbor on Oct. 12, 2000, were arrested and extradited to the United States and other countries.

The primary focus of al-Qaida and its allies in the Gulf has been Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Saudis crushed a jihadist insurgency in 2003-2007 but fear it may now be reviving in neighboring Yemen.

In January the jihadists gathering in Yemen, where the government writ rarely extends beyond the capital Sanaa and a few other cities, renamed themselves al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula.

In August, one of their men got to within a few feet of the Saudi prince who heads the security forces hunting al-Qaida and narrowly missed assassinating him in a suicide bomb attack in his office in Jeddah.

The absence of attacks in the U.A.E., Qatar and other Gulf states can be explained by al-Qaida's "myopic focus on Saudi Arabia," according to counter-terrorism analyst Michael Knights, writing in Jane's Intelligence Review.

But here, too, al-Qaida's reluctance to mount attacks outside Saudi Arabia likely stems from its connections with the ruling dynasties of the region.

U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly claimed that prominent Saudis, Emiratis and Qataris have aided and bankrolled the jihadists over the years even while their governments back the Americans and host U.S. military bases, as in Qatar and the U.A.E.

The pro-Western emirates hosts as many as 150,000 Western expatriates and has a booming tourist industry, but it has no home-grown jihadist tradition and has never suffered a major terrorist strike.

Qatar, which is at odds with Saudi Arabia, has long been a bastion of extremist Wahhabi preachers exiled by the Saudis.

But in recent years the Doha government has purged many of these figures, possibly opening the way for terrorist strikes.

Tiny Qatar has only suffered one serious jihadist attack -- the botched suicide bombing of a theater frequented by Britons on March 19, 2005. The only fatality was a Briton.

But the growing influx of jihadists into Yemen -- and into Somalia too if U.S. assessments are accurate -- from as far afield as Pakistan and Afghanistan and their eagerness to use it as a regional springboard pose a serious threat.

If Yemen's beleaguered government, fighting southern secessionists and northern tribal insurgents as well as al-Qaida's growing strength, collapses then Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states may find themselves on the front line.

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