Qatari theatre hit by explosion

bbc ^ | 3/19/04

[myddf]

A blast in a theatre opposite a British school in the Gulf state of Qatar has caused a number of casualties, UK diplomats have said.

The explosion happened at the theatre outside the capital, Doha, where Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was being performed, the diplomats said.

At least 50 people, plus the cast, are believed to have been in the theatre at the time of the blast.

The audience is thought to have been a mix of foreigners and Arabs.

'People in shock'

More that 50 people were take to hospital after the incident, AP news agency reported, quoting a US official and hospital workers.

The Doha authorities, however, have said six people were injured.

"I saw people lying on the ground. I think they were in shock because of the explosion. They were mostly foreigners," a witness Ahmed Goudah told AP.

Witnesses have said the blast may have been a gas explosion. Large portable gas canisters are often used to store gas for cooking in the Gulf.

But BBC correspondent in Dubai, Julia Wheeler, says Western embassies put the threat from terrorism as high in Qatar, as al-Qaeda has publicly threatened to carry out attacks on Westerners living in the Arabian peninsula.

Doha officials told the al-Jazeera television network that the explosion went off inside the theatre's restaurant.

Al-Jazeera said "dozens of people, mainly foreigners, were attending the play," AFP reported.

The station showed footage of firefighters trying to put out flames.

The explosion is reported to have happened in the early evening local time, outside regular school hours.

British embassy officials are on their way to the scene of the blast.

[tomahawk]

Savages.

[what's up]

Uh oh...my nephew is in Qatar.

My only consolation is that I'm pretty sure he would never be in a theatre watching "Twelfth Night".

[struwwelpeter]

My only consolation is that I'm pretty sure he would never be in a theatre watching "Twelfth Night".

Never say never... years ago I thought I'd never do opera, until the girl I was head over heels for wanted to go ;-)

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Trust but Verify]

Maybe we ought to wait and see if it was intentional. If you read the article, it said it may have been a gas explosion.

[Dog]

That is what I was thinking a gas leak.

[Trust but Verify]

It's crazy how many of those tamks explode. It happens all the time in that region.

[what's up]

I myself like watching Shakespeare once in a while. However...my nephew? Don't think so.

[TexKat]

Security officials and rescue workers inspect the scene near the Doha Players Theater in Doha, Qatar after an explosion on Saturday March 19, 2005. An explosion tore through a theater popular with Westerners during a performance Saturday in Qatar, wounding more than 50 people, a hospital official said. (AP Photo)

Car Bomb at Qatar Theatre Kills Briton, Wounds 12

By Odai Sirri

DOHA (Reuters) - A car bomb killed one Briton and wounded at least 12 people on Saturday at a theater frequented by Westerners in Qatar, command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq which began exactly two years ago.

A Qatari investigator told Reuters a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into the theater near a British school in the capital Doha, badly damaging the playhouse.

"There are two dead, including the suicide bomber," said a second Qatari source, who also declined to be named.

It was the first attack of its kind in the oil-producing Gulf Arab state, which hosts the U.S. military's Central Command. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the blast.

Earlier, the Interior Ministry said the explosion at the one-storey theater, where William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" was being staged, was caused by a rigged car.

"One person was killed and 12 were wounded, of whom 10 have left hospital," the ministry said in a statement on the state news agency QNA.

Britain's Foreign Office said the dead person was a Briton.

"One building at the theater collapsed. There was pandemonium in the area. It took firefighters some time to put out the fire," a British diplomat in Doha, Eric Mattey, told Britain's Sky television.

Sky quoted an unidentified British resident in Doha as saying his daughter was on the stage when the blast occurred. "She felt the blast, saw flames in the theater and part of a ceiling collapsing," he said.

AL QAEDA ATTACKS

Supporters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden have staged attacks in neighboring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but Qatar prides itself on its security and has not experienced suicide bomb attacks before.

Brigadier General Ahmad al-Hayki of the Interior Ministry told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television the blast struck the theater cafeteria, and that most of the wounded were Qataris, other Arabs and Asians.

Asked if the blast had any links to militant attacks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Hayki said: "We do not want to precede events. We have started gathering evidence."

Al Jazeera quoted the Interior Ministry as saying the car used in the attack was registered in the name of an Egyptian.

The channel's correspondent at the scene said about 100 people had been inside the Doha Players theater.

Witnesses said the force of the blast shattered windows of houses and cars in the residential area. White plumes of smoke rose above the building.

A Reuters witness said police sealed off the Fareek Klaib district in central Doha and rescue teams were clearing the rubble. Investigators and sniffer dogs fanned out in the area.

A security guard at the British school said the blast shattered several windows in the building, which was closed at the time, and that a ceiling collapsed in an auditorium.

He said about 40 teachers living in the compound were evacuated but no one was hurt. The Foreign Office spokesman said the blast was "opposite the Doha English Speaking School."

Anti-U.S. sentiment has been high in the region over the Iraq war and perceived U.S. support for Israel against Palestinians.

The suspected leader of al Qaeda's wing in Saudi Arabia had urged Islamists in other Gulf Arab states, including Qatar, to join a holy war against "crusaders" in the region, according to a letter posted on the Internet on Thursday.

Last year, a car bomb in Doha killed exiled Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. A Qatar court sentenced two Russian spies to life imprisonment for the assassination but they were later handed over to Moscow at Russia's request.

Security officials and rescue workers inspect the scene near the Doha Players Theater in Doha, Qatar after an explosion on Saturday March 19, 2005. An explosion tore through a theater popular with Westerners during a performance Saturday in Qatar, wounding more than 50 people, a hospital official said. (AP Photo)

[ChadGore]

ROPMA

[Deetes]

Last year, a car bomb in Doha killed exiled Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. A Qatar court sentenced two Russian spies to life imprisonment for the assassination but they were later handed over to Moscow at Russia's request.

. Very interesting...All fair in the spy game I guess...

[armymarinemom]

Uh oh...my nephew is in Qatar. My only consolation is that I'm pretty sure he would never be in a theatre watching "Twelfth Night".

Prayers going out. Is he there on R&R?

[prairiebreeze]

Damn. A homicide bomber in Qatar.

Bit of a new wrinkle....

[Old Sarge]

Turns out it was a car-bomber.

And Doha is CENTCOM HQ...

Damn.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Shakespeare ping.

[what's up]

Posted there till June. His wife is pregnant with their first.

Thank you for the prayers.

[TexKat]

Security personnel inspect the site of an explosion at the Doha Players Theater, in Doha, Qatar Sunday March 20, 2005. Police searched for clues Sunday amid the wreckage caused by Saturday night's car bomb attack on a Doha theater popular with Westerners that killed one Briton and injured 12 other people. (AP Photo)

Qatar Blames Egyptian for Suicide Bombing

By JABER AL-HARMI, Associated Press Writer

DOHA, Qatar - An Egyptian national carried out a suicide car bomb attack on a Doha theater popular with Westerners that killed one Briton, Qatar's interior minister said Sunday, according to the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel.

After the blast, the largely European audience reportedly streamed out of the hall in the midst of the performance, a rendition of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."

Al-Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, identified the suicide bomber as Omar Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian, and said he owned the car that exploded outside the Doha Players Theater during a Saturday night performance, killing one person and injuring 12 others.

Egyptian authorities have contacted their embassy in Doha seeking further details following claims that an Egyptian national carried out the attack, an Egyptian official in Cairo said on condition of anonymity.

The bombing came on the second anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. It was unclear if the attack was timed to mark the war's commencement, but al-Qaida's leader in the Gulf urged militants this week to attack "crusaders" throughout the Gulf region.

The blast occurred in the northern Doha suburb of Farek Kelab, killing one British national who has not yet been identified. Ten of the 12 people injured have since been released from hospital and no details were available on their identities.

The bombing indicates that terror attacks targeting Westerners appear to be spreading out from Saudi Arabia, infecting other countries in the region where people are angered by U.S. support for Israel and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Saudi Arabia has been plagued by far worse attacks, and Westerners fleeing that kingdom have settled in other, more moderate Gulf states, mainly Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

"We now have Qatar. It's a rolling exercise," said Youssef M. Ibrahim, an oil and political risk analyst who heads Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group. "The notion that the Persian Gulf is a region open to terrorist attacks is now taking hold, not only in Iraq, but in the countries that used to be peaceful."

The bomb scene, which was near the Doha English Speaking School, remained cordoned off Sunday as investigators searched for clues. There has been no claim of responsibility released for the attack as yet.

"I saw people lying on the ground. I think they were in shock because of the explosion. They were mostly foreigners," said Ahmed Goudah, a witness who spoke from the scene, which was littered with dozens of smashed cars, some engulfed in flames.

U.S. Army Capt. Eric Clark, who is based in Qatar, said he spoke with a woman who was playing in a performance of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" when a blast shook the hall.

"She heard a massive explosion and there was mass chaos and people just exited the building," Clark said by telephone.

Earlier, Gen. Ahmed Al-Hariki of the Interior Ministry told Al-Jazeera that the blast occurred at a restaurant inside the theater, which is a popular venue for non-Qataris from Western and Arab countries. The U.S. Embassy is six miles away, and a U.S. military base is almost 12 miles away.

It was unclear if the attack was carried out following an audiotape by Saleh al-Aoofi, a wanted Saudi terrorist who purportedly heads al-Qaida in the Gulf region, that called for attacks against Westerners in the Gulf, including Qatar.

The man who is thought to have taken over the leadership of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, Saleh al-Aoofi is seen in this combination of undated photos, released by the Saudi Interior Ministry, showing him in different ways. The images were computer altered to indicate how he may change his appearance. An audiotape appearing on an Islamic Web site Thursday March 17, 2005 claimed to represent Saleh al-Aoofi, and he promised to dispatch fighters to join the Iraqi insurgency. (AP Photo/Saudi Gazette/File)

"To the brothers in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the Emirates and to all the lions of jihad in the countries neighboring Iraq, every one of us has to attack what is available in his country of soldiers, vehicles and air bases of the crusaders and the oil allocated for them," according to an excerpt of the tape carried in Sunday's London-based Ashram al-Awsat newspaper.

Such violence is rare in Qatar, a small, quiet country with tight security. The last incident of this type was the February 2004 car bomb assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, a former Chechen president who had lived in Qatar for several years. A Qatari court later convicted two Russian intelligence officers of the murder and sentenced them to 25 years in prison

Energy-rich Qatar is a close ally of the United States in the Gulf. The country is home to the U.S. Central Command's forward operations in the Middle East.

A damaged vehicle is seen at the site of an explosion at the Doha Players Theater, in Doha, Qatar Sunday March 20, 2005. Police searched for clues Sunday amid the wreckage caused by Saturday night's car bomb attack on a Doha theater popular with Westerners that killed one Briton and injured 12 other people. (AP Photo)

Security personnel inspect the site of an explosion at the Doha Players Theater, in Doha, Qatar Sunday March 20, 2005. Police searched for clues Sunday amid the wreckage caused by Saturday night's car bomb attack on a Doha theater popular with Westerners that killed one Briton and injured 12 other people. (AP Photo)

[sukhoi-30mki]

Most US military facilities(& forces) are deployed in a desert region,around 1 hour drive from the hustle & bustle of Doha city.That area is more or less completely sanitised & pretty hard to get through.IIRC,there is nothing in Doha city as such barring 'soft' targets like schools or residential compounds for diplomats & contractors.The US embassy there is a veritable fortresss,with one needing to clear multiple layers of security.

[TexKat]

The man identified by Qatar TV as Omar Ahmed Abdullah Ali, an Egyptian who allegedly carried out the suicide bombing at the Doha Players Theater on Saturday March 19, 2005, in Doha, Qatar. Officials in Qatar on Sunday blamed an Egyptian for the suicide car bomb attack on the Doha theatre that killed one Briton and injured 12 others, days after an al-Qaida leader purportedly called for attacks on Western interests in the Gulf region as Iraq marks the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. Image made available Sunday from Qatar TV. (AP photo / Qatar TV)