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| Arabia |
| Taif football captain left home to join Zarqawi |
| 2005-08-25 |
| The captain of the al-Rashid football team in the Saudi city of Taif near Mecca has revealed that three former footballers on the team were recruited to al-Qaeda terror group by its Iraqi number-one, the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Jafar Attas told the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan that he decided to intervene publically after the father of one of his former team-mates, Majid Sawat, recognised his son as one of the suspected al-Qaeda militants arrested in Iraq, whose interrogations were broadcast on Iraqi television. Sawat's father confirmed that his son is currently in Mosul prison after being arrested while trying to carry out a suicide attack. However, his two companions, Tamer al-Thamali and Dayf Allah al-Harithi, managed to complete their suicide 'missions'. Tamer was the first of the three to disappear, two years ago, shortly after the death of his brother in a road accident. The other players from the team believed all three had left Taif for work reasons, but their captain said he suspected from the start that they had left for Iraq. "I remember that every Wednesday and Thursday they met up to carry out religious activities," he told the newspaper. However, their other team-mates said the three former footballers did not arouse suspicion because they had always lived quiet, normal lives. Hundreds of young Saudi men are thought to have gone to Iraq to join the Jihad, or holy war, there. In May, two Arab newspapers ran interviews with young Saudis who went to Iraq but changed their mind. One said he and his friend returned to Saudi Arabia on learning that their only contribution would be as a suicide car-bomber. Another said he and his companions turned back before reaching the Syrian-Iraqi border, on receiving a text message with a fatwa from a Saudi mufti, banning Saudis from taking part in the Jihad. He also said 300 young men had left to fight in Iraq from his region alone. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |