The mastermind of a rampage that killed two Britons and four others in a Saudi Arabian oil town is married to a Briton and belonged to a opposition group in London, officials in the kingdom said today. Muslims in London claimed Scotland Yard has been hunting Mustafa Abdel-Qader Abed al-Ansari for years. He slipped back into Saudi Arabia to lead his brother and two cousins on a bloody rampage, Saudi officials said.
| Normally masterminds let someone else do the dying for them. |
All four attackers were killed in a shoot-out after an hour-long police chase in which they dragged the body of an American victim from the bumper of their car and urged students at a local high school to travel to Iraq to do battle with the US led occupation forces. An Interior Ministry statement identified the leader of the attack as al-Ansari, a Saudi from the city of Medina who was wanted by security forces. It said al-Ansari left the kingdom in 1994 and joined the London-based Committee for the Defence of the Legitimate Rights, a group of Saudi dissidents who advocate overthrowing the monarchy.
| They want direct rule by mullahs, I believe. |
âHe re-entered the country in an illegitimate way and infiltrated the borders to carry out despicable plans,â the ministry said. Founders of the Committee for the Defence of the Legitimate Rights said al-Ansari first contacted them in 1994. Mohammed al-Masaari, one of the founders, said al-Ansari came to London at age 22 after spending time with Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
| Gee, will wonders never cease? |
He briefly joined the group, which sent him to study English in Cambridge, and married a stupid infidel British woman, he said. But al-Ansari âdisappearedâ in 1997, al-Masaari said. He said he later heard he had been arrested in Yemen. âWe thought that he was still imprisoned in Yemen, or probably in Guantanamo,â al-Masaari said.
| Yemen still has that open-door policy for prisons, I see. |
"I found him simple, probably naive and lacking in knowledge of politics and Islamic law. He was enthusiastic for holy war and eager to go anywhere to fight ..." | Perfect cannon fodder, er, mastermind material |
"...but we told him that we are only active in political and religious matters,â he said.
| "No, no, we're peacefull, we don't have anything to do with violence, why we hardly knew him, who are you talking about again?" |
Muslim activists in London said Scotland Yard had been pursuing al-Ansari for years and that its agents had questioned many Muslim activists about him. |