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| Arabia | |||
| Al-Qaeda thrives in al-Suwaidi | |||
| 2004-06-09 | |||
THE slum where an Irish cameraman was killed and a British BBC reporter was critically wounded on Sunday is only a short drive from the bright neon lights, towering skyscrapers, gated royal palaces and walled residential compounds of Riyadh. But, as the impoverished epicentre of Saudi Arabia’s new Islamic insurgency, it is a world away from the wealthy capital’s veneer of 21st century modernity.
The more than half-a-million people already crammed into the district live in a massive entanglement of narrow lanes, pot-holed roads and open sewers, and suffer frequent power and water outages. Since they are the people most attracted by Al-Qaeda’s call to rid the kingdom of corruption and decadence, the slum has predictably become a fertile breeding ground for Islamic extremism. It is also a perfect environment for the kind of guerilla warfare that Al-Qaeda’s leader in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin, called for just two days before last week’s attacks in Khobar, which left 22 people dead.But until now, the radicals had, by necessity, taken their fight from the slums and into the cities. Recognising its potential for providing recruits to the cause of Osama bin Laden, reform-minded de facto leader Crown Prince Abdullah made a tour of Al-Suwaidi last November. On live TV, he admitted to a socioeconomic problem that many rich Saudis and conservative members of the royal family would still prefer not to acknowledge, even privately.
Although Al-Suwaidi, like other slums on the edge of all of the kingdom’s new urban centres, effectively becomes a police no-go area after dark, in the last eight months it has been the scene of at least two armed clashes between the Saudi security forces and suspected militants. On Sunday, Mr Gardner was on his way with his cameraman to film the family home of Al-Rayyes when they were attacked. Al-Arabiya television showed footage of Mr Gardner sitting on the tarmac with multiple bullet wounds. According to a police officer, he pleaded for his life while shouting to onlookers to help him. As shocking as the bloodstains on his white pullover was the fact that local residents appeared to have merely looked on, apparently unmoved by the sight of this ’infidel’ in such distress.
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| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 It attracts a stream of villagers idiots from the surrounding countryside in search of a better life in the city. Does anyone remember the "Village Idiots' Convention" in the Woody Allen Movie, "Love and Death"? |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-06-09 3:34:02 PM |
| #4 What went wrong, #3, was the perceived need for "diversity" to invade every walk of life. In the 1980's, MSM started hiring black reporters to report on black issues, female reporters to report on family, feminist issues, gay reporters to report on gay issues, so it follows that now only Muslim reporters can report on ME, Islamic issues...right? Read Coloring the News by William McGowan if you get the chance. McGowan has a website: http://www.coloringthenews.com/ |
| Posted by: rex 2004-06-09 3:00:18 AM |
| #3 In fact, Mr. Gardner was a Muslim convert and was very shocked to learn that conversion to Islam not to mention left wing BBC employment weren't enough to earn favorable treatment by the Islamofacists. As the black Muslims in Sudan are experiencing today. I think one large reason Western news coverage coming from the Mideast and South Asia is so negative is that western news agencies use locals (or in this case a Muslim convert) to gather the news which is then disseminated by AP, CNN and all. This is equivalent to letting the Germans, or sympathetic neutrals such as Spain, write the WW2 Allied news copy. Americans used to agree that the enemy cannot have control of our information flow. What went wrong? |
| Posted by: ed 2004-06-09 2:47:59 AM |
| #2 Can't a fella Muslim get some help here? Where's Nurse Burka when ya need her? |
| Posted by: MinneMike 2004-06-09 1:36:53 AM |
| #1 Ironically enough, the BBC reporter, Mr. Gardner, was not an "infidel" or at least he didn't think he was. In fact, Mr. Gardner was a Muslim convert and was very shocked to learn that conversion to Islam not to mention left wing BBC employment weren't enough to earn favorable treatment by the Islamofacists. So sad, too bad. You're one of "us" no matter how hard you try to be otherwise, Mr. Gardner. Per LGF, picture of the shooting scene: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10204 "Bullet-riddled BBC reporter cried in Arabic for help from bystanders as they watch him bleed in Riyadh" Riddled with bullets, BBC correspondent Frank Gardner pleaded for his life in the Saudi capital shouting to bystanders to help a fellow Muslim, a police officer said on Monday. "I'm a Muslim, help me, I'm a Muslim, help me," the British father of two daughters cried in Arabic, the officer said. A fluent Arabic speaker with a degree in Arab and Islamic Studies, he was carrying a small copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, a device used by Westerner reporters to try to reassure Islamist militants |
| Posted by: rex 2004-06-09 1:21:52 AM |