The leader of the al Qaeda attack on the U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia had been jailed for "extremist ideology" and once worked for the kingdom's austere morality police, local newspapers said on Wednesday. Saudi dailies said Fayez Awad al-Jihani was the head of an al Qaeda cell in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, where the brazen daylight attack on the U.S. consulate took place on Monday. Jihani was one of four attackers who died in the assault. A fifth was wounded and arrested. Saudi authorities identified three of the assailants, none of whom were on a list of top wanted militants.
The attack, in which five non-American consulate staff died, was the first on a Western diplomatic mission and the first big strike in six months in the world's top oil exporter by militants bent on driving Westerners from the cradle of Islam. Leading Saudi newspaper Okaz quoted sources close to Jihani's family as saying he had been jailed for four months "due to extremist ideology", was freed in October 2003 and disappeared three months after that. It said rumours surfaced then that he had gone to the western Iraqi city of Falluja.
Al Qaeda's Saudi wing claimed the consulate strike, which was codenamed "the blessed Falluja attack" after the city where U.S.-led forces launched an offensive against insurgents including supporters of al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Another Saudi daily, al-Watan, quoted a cousin of Jihani as saying he had been fired from the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice five years ago for "misconduct". Okaz said Jihani, who was in his mid-20s, joined the authority after graduating from high school but was sacked after he assaulted some people detained by the morality police. The authority is a pillar of the ultraconservative kingdom. Answerable only to King Fahd and separate from ordinary police, members of the authority patrol the streets with police escort, ensuring their strict interpretation of Islam is upheld. The body has come under unprecedented scrutiny in Saudi Arabia after a wave of al Qaeda attacks in the kingdom since May 2003. |