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Top Saudi clerics praised Al-Q attack on ’Arab brothel of Riyad’
From Geostrategy Direct
Saudi Arabia is being forced to confront an extremely alarming prospect: Al Qaida’s suicide attacks in Riyadh two months ago might have been aided by the kingdom’s religious police and several leading clerics.
Common goals on this one, so why not joint venture the project?
The prospect that the eye-rolling truncheon-wielding spittle- spewing controversial religious police was involved in the attack on the Muhaya compound in Riyadh on Nov. 9 has emerged as a real possibility. Al Muhaya was not chosen because it contained hated Westerners. Instead, Muhaya was the playground of rich Arab Muslim expatriates who believed they could live a life in the lap of luxury behind the high walls of the compound. Western security sources said the Muhaya compound in Riyad was regarded as a playground of Lebanese advisers to the royal family. The compound featured baby milk factories topless dancers, pornography and bikini-clad women around the pool, which enraged the religious police.
That would wind the turbans up a few RPM, all right.
At one point, the regime stopped a planned raid of the compound. "The attack was hailed in some circles of the regime because they felt that those in Muhaya were taking liberties never seen before in Saudi Arabia," a security source said. "Powerful members of the royal family did not want to alienate these people because of their skills in finance."
Gotta keep the mullah moolah moving.
Once a compound dominated by the U.S. defense giant, Muhaya quickly [became] the residence of Egyptians, Lebanese and Palestinians in 2002 and 2003. Many of the Lebanese served the royal family in investments, accounting and other economic activities. As a result, Muhaya was virtually immune from raids of the Saudi religious police. The sources said Muhaya was known as a pleasure ground for those who sought to escape the segregation of sexes in the kingdom. This included a makeshift nightclub, belly dancers and strip shows as well as a pool where women sunbathed in bikinis. The Saudi religious police, termed the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, tried twice to raid Muhaya, termed the "Arab brothel of Riyadh," but was blocked by senior members of the royal family who did not want a scandal or the flight of vital financial advisers. The sources said the suicide bombing of Muhaya was privately hailed by leading Saudi clerics.
Now the Arab brothel of Riyadh has been dealt a blow, the Religious police need to watch their sixes, as they have, in effect, become useful idiots for Al-Q.

Geostrategy Direct is behind the curve on this one. We reported it from a Las Vegas Sun/AP article back in November, and again in December, from an Asia Times article. I don't know if the Inquisition was actually involved or not, but I suspect they may have provided the "intelligence," perhaps fuelled by fertile Islamic imaginations, for the guys who did the deed.

Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-01-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24358