Posted on 06/20/2002 5:20:53 AM PDT by Brian Mosely
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, June 20 — A car bomb explosion killed a British banker in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh on Thursday, witnesses and officials said. The official Saudi Press Agency quoted a police official as saying the victim, Simon John Veness, worked at Al Bank Al Saudi Al Fransi. Veness was alone.
THE OFFICIAL QUOTED by Saudi Press Agency said it was suspected that an explosive device was planted in the banker’s four-wheel drive vehicle. An investigation was under way.
In London, the Foreign Office said the explosion happened in the street outside a residential compound.
“A person died in the explosion. We can confirm he is British but at this stage can’t confirm his identity,” a spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.
“The Saudi police are currently at the compound investigating the explosion,” the spokesman said. “We are in close contact with the Saudi authorities and the family of the man who died in the explosion.”
The explosion came two days after Saudi Arabia announced that it had arrested a group of 13 people suspected to have links with Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story. Updates will be made shortly.
Can you name the other 3?
"The bombing follows a series of similar blasts in the country.
Two bombings in Riyadh in late 2000 killed a Briton and injured four others. A Scottish man was injured in an explosion in Khobar in December 2000. In March 2001, a Briton and an Egyptian were injured in a bombing outside a large downtown Riyadh bookstore. In May 2001, an American was seriously injured in Khobar when the package he was opening exploded in his face.
Saudi officials said those blasts arose from disputes between gangs smuggling alcohol, which is forbidden in the kingdom under Islamic laws but is not difficult to obtain.
Five Britons, a Canadian and a Belgian have been arrested in connection with the bombings and are awaiting trial."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=716&e=6&cid=514&u=/ap/20020620/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saudi_explosion
Was it terrorists or other westerners who did it?
Heh heh, bet they made that assumption from dental remains...
I do bemoan...well, I pity anyone who feels impelled to commit such an act. However, that doesn't change the fact of the act itself or the necessity of justice.
I will never think pity to be a bad or wrong emotion, though it may be misplaced from time to time. I think it better than feeling nothing but hate and a rage for revenge.
It may well be that at some point we will have to go to war with the entire Moslem world in order to protect ourselves. If it comes to that, you can be sure I'll do my part to eradicate those that must be eradicated...but, to the best of my ability, I won't exceed what need requires. I will also pity those who, for one reason or another, even by their own violition, have become so twisted and corrupted that we have no option but to kill them.
You can like dogs but bemoan the need to put down a rabid one and curse the disease that makes it necessary. If Islam ends up being such a disease, then we will have to destroy it by whatever means is necessary.
Tuor
Give me liberty or give me death.
It seems arms shipments are the priority for the goverment and its agencies. I hope the US do not have the same attitude when its citizens are attacked.
I have hightlighted the interesting part.
Independent
Britain is home to 'substantially more' than 100 terrorism suspects, says Scotland Yard Jason Bennetto and Andrew Buncombe
More than 100 terrorism suspects and activists belonging to organisations connected with Osama bin Laden are based in Britain, Scotland Yard disclosed yesterday.
Details of the potential terrorists were revealed when the Metropolitan Police outlined plans for an international task force to track down and prosecute terrorists worldwide.
A national unit staffed by officers from the intelligence agencies MI5 and M16, Special Branch, and the Met's anti-terrorist branch has already been set up to find suspected supporters of Mr bin Laden.
Assistant Commissioner David Veness, the head of Scotland Yard's specialist operations, said that "substantially more than 100" activists who belonged to seven different terrorist groups had been identified in the United Kingdom. The police intended to make "robust use of counter-terrorism laws" to bring to justice suspected members of illegal organisations in Britain, he said.
Among the groups under scrutiny by anti-terrorist officers are al-Qa'ida, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group based in Algeria, and groups seeking independence from India in Kashmir.
Mr Veness also disclosed that the police had drawn up plans to arrest and question any citizens returning to Britain who had fought in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban.
The anti-terrorist branch and MI6 and MI5 are compiling information on Islamic extremists recruited in Britain by members of the al-Qa'ida network. There are about a dozen British prisoners being held in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but other supporters of the Taliban and Mr bin Laden are expected to try to return to the UK in the next few weeks.
There has been concern that the authorities were unaware of suspected extremists and supporters of al-Qa'ida living Britain, including Richard Reid, from London, who is accused of trying to blow up an airliner with a bomb hidden in his shoe.
Mr Veness disclosed details of plans for a new "international counter-terrorism task force" which would include specialist officers from the 15 countries that make up Europol, the European police organisation, and the FBI. Under the proposals suspected terrorists could be prosecuted and investigations made by officers from several different countries.
Several global investigations into suspected members of al-Qa'ida have been hampered because by the lack of co-ordination between countries.
A 12-member "police international counter-terrorism unit" has been set up in the past few weeks. Staffed by veteran anti-terrorist officers, it will mount a number of operations against suspects and advise police forces on how to deal with terrorism threats.
In the United States yesterday, lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, argued for his trial relating to 11 September to be televised. A cable television firm is also backing the move. The District Judge Leonie Brinkema said at the court in Virginia that she would not issue a ruling before Tuesday.
Mr Moussaoui, 33, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is accused of conspiring to murder thousands of people. He was arrested in August after arousing suspicion at a flying school. Investigators believe he would otherwise have been part of the hijacking team that seized the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. His trial is due to start in October.
The explosive devices are small and innocuous, the size of a pack of cigarettes. They are put in unusual places such as under the windshield wipers. Some of the devices were found intact and analyzed, the forensic trail led to Saudi govt sources.
I think that a total quarantine is coming in the next few years. No flights into or out of arab muslim nations. No ships. No "students".
We will have a rough time, adjusting to the lack of arab oil, but we will manage.
OTOH, the muslim arabs will starve, they will not be able to feed the populations they have produced with oil wealth. They can't eat sand or drink oil, and they can't so much as fix a power plant or desalinating (fresh water making) plant without outside (Western) assistance.
(needless to say Saudis invest billions in Citibank)
A quarantine wont work. We already have too many of them inside our own country, let alone how many are now living in Europe. No, if things keep going the way they are, there will be war. Either war, or the West will capitulate and be destroyed.
Israel, IMO, as a microcosm of what will happen to the West (in the early stages) if it refuses to fight back on the scale necessary. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live like the Israelis do.
Tuor
Give me liberty or give me death.
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