Sunday, April 25, 2004

Welcome to our world Saudi Arabia

From LA Times via Jihad Watch

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Abdelaziz Raikhan was fuming Saturday, standing alongside his pickup and surveying the abandoned shops and blasted apartment buildings of downtown, a zone still littered with twisted cars and chunks of rubble from the suicide bombing of a police headquarters.

"They're mentally ill, this crowd," he said of the Islamic militants who killed at least five people and wounded 148 on Wednesday. Raikhan, 30, works as a maintenance man for the Saudi security forces; luckily, he was on the other side of town when his office was blown up.


There's not one American in this entire area," he said, sweeping an arm to take in a neighborhood eerily still, its streets laced with police tape. "Not one! What kind of jihad is this?"

Throughout the Saudi mainstream, the call has risen: This insurgency is not a jihad, because a jihad, or sacred struggle, does not kill fellow Muslims, let alone Saudis. Wednesday's attack, plainly meant to kill Saudi police and civilians milling through the tightly wound streets of downtown at rush hour, has infuriated Saudis.


Presumedly if an American had been in the area then that would have been ok.

This ascetic, oil-rich kingdom is stuck between the religious ideal of jihad, still widely embraced, and the bloody, nerve-wracked reality of a nation targeted by militants. Saudis curse the U.S. troops in Fallouja, Iraq, and praise Hamas suicide bombings in Israel even as they pass through metal detectors and steer their cars through the checkpoints that choke Riyadh's traffic to a standstill.

Many people here who have praised and supported jihad around the world are shocked to find themselves on the receiving end of a violence fueled by religious extremism.


Welcome to the party boys. Hey, you wanna pass me that ammo belt there fella?

The Riyadh attack, they say, doesn't fit the bill, and many people bristle at the comparison. Jihad is waged against an invading army or an occupying force, they point out. It does not apply to Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism, they say.

Seems ole Sama don't see it that way mate.

"It doesn't make sense; they're losing popularity and credibility, if they ever had any," Batarfi said. "The [American] troops have left, so what are you doing?"

"They're losing popularity" as any self respecting rapper would say "now ain't that a bitch".

We told you this had nothing to do with America. This is about world domination and you haven't been playing the game.

"It was a big relief when the Americans left," Abdullah Bejad, a former Saudi jihadi who is now among the reformers fighting for political liberalization, said in a recent interview. "By getting the American bases out of here the government has pulled a very strong excuse away from Al Qaeda."

Boy you guys are dumb. You and Spain need to get together and retake Terrorism 101.

[...]

"They hate the people of this country," she said. "They want them to be like the Taliban."

And so he fanned the spark and the spark became a flame and the flame a fire and there was warmth and light.

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