GUNMEN who attacked a residential compound in al-Khobar and took hostages in a weekend of carnage managed to flee the scene disguised as military personnel, a former hostage said today. "The four terrorists ran away in military uniforms," said the man, requesting anonymity. He said three of the assailants had initially arrived "wearing black sports clothes and the fourth was dressed as an Afghan".
| That's always a good disguise. Every time I disguise myself as an Afghan people don't notice me. Except for the girlies. They always want to touch my rocket launcher... |
As they fled "they jumped over a wall of the hotel where they had taken us hostages, after which three terrorists seized a van" and drove off, added the former hostage. As three of the gunmen fled the hotel together, the fourth took off in another vehicle. "But security forces gave chase, shooting at his vehicle, seriously wounding him before he was stopped not far off from the complex" where the hostages were held, a policeman involved in his capture told AFP.
| "Stop or we'll [BANG!] shoot!" |
The Times newspaper however reported today the three gunmen were allowed to walk free when they cut a deal with Saudi authorities after threatening to kill more Westerners. "There was a kind of deal reached, although some hostages had already been killed," said the source, who was not named.
| That's probably why the Soddies got to shoot one of them. I wonder if they drew straws? |
"The security forces refused (to negotiate) at the beginning but then apparently relented." The source told the London daily the three had fled on foot from the building in al-Khobar, shortly before Saudi forces landed on the roof, and that they hijacked a car only once outside the complex. "To leave, they had to puncture three cordons of defence," the source said.
| ... which in Soddy Arabia isn't all that hard to do, unless you're an alk runner. |
The interior ministry announced the four gunmen had killed 22 people and wounded 25 others during their bloody 24-hour rampage that began Saturday and only ended after commandos stormed the sprawling Oasis residential compound. A ministry statement also said three of the gunmen had managed to escape while the fourth, the alleged group leader, was wounded and captured as elite forces stormed the compound to free the hostages. The interior ministry gave little detail about how the three managed to get away after cutting the throats of nine hostages, despite the fact that the building and the compound were supposed to have been surrounded for a day.
| I'm sure they're not going to give any more detail than they absolutely have to. Even for Arabs, they push the limits of incompetence... |
The ministry said the men had used a getaway vehicle to leave al-Khobar and then fled to nearby Dammam, capital of the oil-rich Eastern Province. Witnesses there reported that they had once again escaped their pursuers.
| "Which way do he go, George? Which way did he go?" |
Saudi Sultan al-Oteibi told AFP yesterday the trio had seized his car at gunpoint in Dammam, 10 kms north of al-Khobar, after they had abandoned a pickup truck. "The three men were in military uniforms when they took the car," said Oteibi’s Palestinian neighbour, Shadi Mahmoud Shenaa, who was driving Oteibi’s car when it was seized. Oteibi said his car was hijacked early Sunday morning. If the timing is correct, the gunmen who had taken dozens of people hostage had disappeared well before Saudi troops launched an assault at 5.30am on the compound building where the militants had been holed up since Saturday.
| Fewer casualties among the Lions of the Desert that way... |
"When security forces stormed the hotel, they didn’t find any of the four terrorists," another former hostage told AFP. The apparent ease of the flight of the killers only added to alarm bells sounding abroad and drove oil prices even higher as fears of disruption to supplies from Saudi Arabia intensified. Statements purportedly from al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the latest attacks and vowed to "cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of infidels". Eighteen on a Saudi list of 26 most-wanted terror suspects remain at large amid a nationwide crackdown on suspected al-Qaeda sympathisers whose campaign has claimed dozens of lives and left hundreds wounded over the past year. |