Saudis Kill Al Qaeda Mastermind (about time they got something right!)

News.com.au ^ | 20th June, 2004 | Anna Cock

[KangarooJacqui]

Saudis kill al-Qaeda mastermind By Anna Cock in New York June 20, 2004

ONE of the world's most wanted terrorists was reportedly shot dead yesterday, a few hours after his militant group beheaded an American defence contractor.

Abdulaziz al-Muqrin who Saudi police shot dead.

Saudi authorities said Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin was killed with three other wanted terrorists in the capital, Riyadh, while they were trying to dispose of the body.

The raids followed the execution of Paul Johnson, who worked in Saudi Arabia for the aerospace company Lockheed Martin, which makes Apache helicopter gunships.

Video footage of the grisly killing was posted on Islamist websites.

In a fast-moving military operation, Saudi security forces closed in on the Malazz district, a middle-class area of Riyadh.

They reportedly stormed a building - possibly the makeshift prison where Mr Johnson had been held captive - before surrounding the terrorists' car in a Riyadh street.

Authorities said two brothers, Bandar and Faisal Abdul Rahman al-Dakheel, and another terrorist were shot and killed.

Saudi state television last night broadcast pictures of four bodies it said were those of Muqrin and the three other dead militants.

But a website linked to al-Qaeda yesterday denied al-Muqrin had been killed.

"Following the lies about the death of Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, we affirm that such allegations, spread by the tyrants in Saudi Arabia, are intended to undermine the morale of the mujahideen," the communique said.

Arabiya television showed footage of police cars and crowds.

A passer-by who saw the three men unloading a body reportedly led police to the terrorists' vehicle.

Muqrin and his companions were killed in an exchange of fire in which a member of the Saudi security forces also died.

President Bush vowed that Mr Johnson's beheading by "extremist thugs" would not blunt the United States' resolve.

"They're trying to shake our will; they're trying to get us to retreat from the world. America will not retreat. America will not be intimidated by these kinds of extremist thugs," Mr Bush told reporters.

In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan offered his sympathy to Mr Johnson's family, declaring: "These kinds of brutal acts do not help anybody."

In his home town in New Jersey, Mr Johnson's mother, siblings and son grieved in private yesterday, leaving an FBI agent to read a statement in which the family said authorities had done everything within their means to rescue him.

Muqrin's group - the Organisation of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - had admitted responsibility for Mr Johnson's beheading, saying it was in revenge for the US-led war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.

The group warned that other Americans could suffer a similar fate.

An Islamist website showed three pictures of what appeared to be Johnson's severed head. One showed the bloodied head with a knife leaning on the face.

A hooded man purported to be Muqrin, in black garb and clutching an AK-47 rifle, appeared on the site last week saying al-Qaeda would kill Mr Johnson unless authorities released jailed militants within 72 hours. The Arabic script read: "Get the infidel out of the Arab land."

Muqrin took over the leadership of Saudi Arabia's al-Qaeda terrorist network in March this year after the previous leader was killed in a gun battle with security forces.

A long-standing associate of Osama bin Laden, he oversaw his own terrorist network in Saudi Arabia.

Muqrin had praised the killing of Westerners, including the attack in the Saudi city of Yanbu last month, the killing of a German in Riyadh two weeks ago and an attack on US military personnel last Wednesday.

Malazz had been the focus of a huge security search after Mr Johnson was kidnapped and militants shot dead US contractor Kenneth Scroggs last Saturday.

One source said scores of suspected militants had been arrested in the past week.

Mr Scroggs, an American who worked for Advanced Electronics, which manufactures military and commercial electronic products, was gunned down outside his villa.

Earlier, Saudi television broadcast a tearful call for mercy in broken English from Johnson's Thai-born wife, Thanom.

Abdulaziz al-Muqrin who Saudi police shot dead.

[KangarooJacqui]

Scumbags...

Nuke em all and let Allah (God, Jehovah, Elohim, whaddaeveryacallhimorher) sort them out.

[Piquaboy]

We should kill more of them everytime they kill one of ours,even if we have to drag them out of prison cells to do it.

[snooker]

" But a website linked to al-Qaeda yesterday denied al-Muqrin had been killed. "

Sounds like they got him.

[paguch]

Untill Saudia Arabia stops the Mosques in the U.S. from teaching the Wahabi philosophy we will not be safe. All of the problems with terrorism stem from Saudia Arabia and we better start to understand it.

Our response from any future attack should be tenfold against the Saudi's. We should put them on notice that unless they talk a different talk and walk a different walk, WE WILL hold them responsible.

[Ron in Acreage]

we need to see photos like uday and kusay after they were killed. full face pix. not just unrecognizable bodies

[muawiyah]

So we end up killing off all the Saudis who will even talk to us, do you then propose genocide?

[mhking]

we need to see photos like uday and kusay after they were killed. full face pix. not just unrecognizable bodies

Does this suffice?

[blastdad51]

We need to go after their families too!!! When we identify the bastards, we should go get their wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sister whoever. Execute the terrorist families in the same way they killed their victims. Delete their gene pool from that of humankind.

[Ron in Acreage]

thank you. That's more like it,

[camas]

they say they killed them??????

[Andy from Beaverton]

Funny how the Saudis never take prisoners? The left would never allow that here.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

They claim the beheading was prompted by our failure to release some of their Islamofascist brethrem who are being held in prison. I think they ought to release all the Al-Qaeda terrorists who are currently being held. Before they are released, however, we should inject them with a nice, fatal, highly contagious disease. It's the same way they poison insects, and the poisoned ones bring death to their fellow insects. The parallels are obvious.

[TeleStraightShooter]

That's one of the best I answer I've heard for this problem:

For every hostage they sacrifice on their alter for their god,
-kill ten of their Al-Queda prisoners.
- and garnish with pork.

[rewrite]

"He's DEAD Jim!"

[ChocChipCookie]

My hope is that the House of Saud has been sufficiently scared by all that is happening in their kingdom, see their reign possibly coming to an end, and decide to squash the islamofascists as only they can. They can get away with, shall we say, certain "punishments" that we never could.

If/when this happens, I say we turn a blind eye, shake our heads and cluck, "Those Saudis. They sure have some brutal traditions."

[50sDad]

Dead men tell no tales?

[F16Fighter]

Dead Men tell no tales...

My opinion?

Al-Muqrin's capture by U.S. Intel would have implicated Saudi higher-ups already knee-deep.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Saudis Kill Al Qaeda Matermind

Shouldn't it be mind over mater?

[F16Fighter]

Great minds...;-)

[Physicist]

Funny how the Saudis never take prisoners?

Not funny. The information they had was crucial, and died with them.