Posted on 06/23/2003 10:29:18 AM PDT by knighthawk
The head of a British-based Saudi Arabia opposition movement has suffered leg wounds after an assault, it was reported Monday by the British press.
Dr. Saad al-Fagih, head of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), required hospital treatment after the attack, police sources said. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Police and ambulance were called at 10.45pm yesterday to an address in Willesden, north west London, following a report of an altercation in the street.
"Ambulance attended and took the victim - a man in his 40s - to a London hospital suffering a leg wound."
Fagih's injuries are not believed to be life threatening and police inquiries are continuing. Scotland Yard said the incident was an assault and added that an item had been recovered from the scene.
Faqih told the BBC that two men claiming to be plumbers knocked on his door and then forced their way into his home. He said he had received recent warnings of a plan to abduct or kill him.
Mohammed al-Masari, a friend of al-Faqih, said the attackers sprayed him with something to make him drowsy. "A fight ensued and Faqih grabbed a table to defend himself and then the two men knifed him," al-Masari told Reuters.
"As they were going away, they said: 'take that as a message from the Saudi Government'."
MIRA seeks major reforms in Saudi Arabia, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the abolition of the secret police units subverting political movements and activity.
... Two of the men contacted by Bin Laden in Britain — Khaled al Fawwaz and Ibrahim Eidarous — are now in prison awaiting extradition to the United States for their part in the embassy bombings, which killed 224 and injured thousands.
However, another senior terrorist suspect, Mustafa Nazar, is still on the loose. He spent up to two years in Dollis Hill, north London, recruiting for Al-Qaeda. A key figure in Bin Laden’s terror training camps, he left Britain in 1998 and was last seen in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban.
The telephone records have come to light following the trial last year of four Al-Qaeda terrorists who planned and carried out the bombing of the two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
According to trial documents, the telephone [the one bin Laden used] was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Saad al Fagih, 45, a bearded surgeon who heads the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda.
Al Fagih, who has been regularly used by the BBC as an expert on Bin Laden, has in the past explained that Muslim scholars said the killing of civilians, including children, was allowed by the Koran as “collateral damage” in the holy war.
It was al Fagih’s credit card which was used to help to buy the £10,500 Compact-M satellite phone in the United States and it was shipped to his home in north London, according to American court documents. His credit card was also used to buy more than 3,000 minutes of pre-paid airtime.
Last week al Fagih, who has not been arrested or charged in connection with any of these actions, said: “I am willing to speak to the authorities if they ask me about this or any other issue, but not to the press.” ...------ "Bin Laden called UK 260 times," by Nick Fielding and Dipesh Gadhery, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 03/24/2002
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