bq. Many people here believe that after years of threats, a struggle aimed at wrecking Saudi Arabia’s storied oil industry has begun. The nature of the violence has morphed; suicide bombings at housing compounds in Riyadh gave way to two major shooting rampages at oil companies last month. Workers are no longer rattled or nervous ? they are scared. Saudi stability once seemed a relatively safe bet; now analysts are questioning the security of the kingdom’s oil facilities and the tight grip of its ruling family. [“LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudis5jun05,1,5607761.story?coll=la-home-headlines (regn reqd)]
This is what the terrorists wanted in the first place. People who keep the Saudi economy moving are the immigrants, about 6 million of them. Recently there “was a move to prevent immigrants”:https://varnam.org/archives/000329.html from taking up certain jobs. But the terrorist activity has accelerated the fleeing of immigrants.
bq. Now foreigners are barricaded in gated communities, terrified to venture outside. Some are abandoning Saudi Arabia altogether. Workers at Aramco estimate that dozens of employees have resigned since last weekend. Nervous workers are urging their spouses and children to leave the country for the summer, or longer. Many are quietly looking for new jobs, hoping to line up a financial escape route. [“LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudis5jun05,1,5607761.story?coll=la-home-headlines (regn reqd)]
The British have warned of more _spectacular attacks_
bq. “We continue to believe that terrorists remain determined to carry out further attacks in Saudi Arabia, and that these may be in the final stages of preparation,” the Foreign Office said Sunday, advising against all but essential travel to the oil-rich kingdom. “The threat includes, but is not limited to, residential compounds and diplomatic and other official premises,” it said. [“Middle East Online”:http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10106]
You may not like this place for all the hatred they export, but whatever happens here will affect your daily life.

The Indian Govt. “reacts to the terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia”:http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=20282
bq. “We condemn this wanton act of terrorism which has led to the loss of innocent lives and damage to property,” the external affairs ministry said in a statement. “The Indian casualties were victims of the circumstances rather than pre-meditated targets of attack.”
It was a pre-meditated attack and it is part of their plan to cleanse the Arabian peninsula of infidels. It was explicitly stated by the terrorists:
bq. Accompanying the eight-minute recording was a 700-word written statement which claimed that “infidels and crusaders” among the hostages had been killed, including 10 Indians, “those cow worshippers who killed our Muslim brothers in Kashmir”. [“Guardian”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/saudi/story/0,11599,1228365,00.html]
As per the new Common Minimum Program adopted by the Congress Govt, there are plans to push India’s decades-old commitment to the cause of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own and improve ties with the Arabs. You can do all that, but still that will not change the fact that you are an infidel.

Abu Hamza, the Muslim cleric who gave us the Shoe Bomber has "now been arrested":http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=11171_Abu_Hamza_Arrested_At_Last for deportation to United States. As per a report in The Times of India, "Abu Hamza was the main conspirator":http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-706485,curpg-1.cms in the terrorist attach in Akshardham in India in September 24, 2002.
bq. The investigating agency in its chargesheet in the case named Abu Hamza of Riyadh as one of the main conspirators. The Crime Branch had alleged that the plot to attack Akshardham was hatched to avenge the communal riots in Gujarat. The chargesheet said that the plot was hatched in Saudi Arabia and that the terrorist attack in Gujarat had been planned by Abu Hamza and Abu Sifiyan of Riyadh along with Abu Talah, a resident of Jeddah. They allegedly took the help of one Salim Shaikh who worked in Riyadh but hailed from Dariapur in Ahmedabad. Salim was among the first to be arrested while the other three are named as absconders in the case.

bq. The nation’s top law enforcement officials, saying they are convinced al Qaeda is planning an attack on the United States in the coming months, issued an urgent plea yesterday for information about seven people who they said could be involved in such an effort. [“Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58760-2004May26.html]
This looks serious enough that so many Administration officials came out with this information today. With so much enquiry going on about 9/11, the Administration officials want to be seen as warning public beforehand, rather than wait for something to strike and then face accusations. But then there was another piece of information from our ally in the war on terror.
bq. Privately, Pakistanis grumble that the U.S. and its coalition partners are pushing too hard and as a result the Pakistani army rushed headlong into Waziristan unprepared for the resistance it faced. “Yes, we’re impatient,” conceded one Western diplomat in Islamabad. “But we’re operating against the unknown deadline of a major terrorist attack in the U.S. That’s what drives us.” Another Islamabad-based diplomat claimed that lately Western intelligence was picking up “lots of chatter” from its electronic eavesdropping and informants that “something very nasty was being planned out of Pakistan.” [“Time”:http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501040517-634733,00.html]

A day after India’s new government took office, a landmine planted by Islamic separatist guerrillas killed at least 28 paramilitary soldiers and their relatives in Kashmir, underscoring the urgency of planned negotiations with Pakistan on the future of the disputed Himalayan province.

Police officials said the blast killed 19 Border Security Force soldiers, six women and three children. Body parts, bloodstained clothes and lunch boxes were scattered along the pavement, Reuters news service reported from the scene. The families had been traveling with the soldiers on leave from Srinagar to Jammu, the state’s winter capital, according to the Press Trust of India news service. [via Washington Post]

The same strategy continues. Kill people and force the Indian Government to the negotiating table. I am sure Dan Burton will not want to conduct a hearing on this.

bq. Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, “his reaction was not fear, but utter relief.” Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, “tell you what to do.” The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd’s and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.
Time Magazine has an “article”:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan and the information he revealed.
And still Saudis and Pakistanis are our close allies.
[link via “InstaPundit”:http://www.instapundit.com/archives/011267.php]

“Sameer”:http://supersam5.blogspot.com/2003_08_24_supersam5_archive.html#106188973679797026 writes from Mumbai
bq. The people of Mumbai have, as always, bounced right back, refusing to be cowed down. Whether this is resilience or apathy… one thing is certain. The spirit that keeps Mumbai ticking has not died down. An example of that resilience is the fact that the Sensex, which plumetted 120 points during the day yesterday, after the news of the blasts broke… has bounced back by regaining most of the lost ground. The sensex was 108 points up from yesterday’s close at the time I posted this entry.
And “MadMan”:http://www.yazadjal.com/mt/archives/000113.html is furious at the intelligence agencies
bq. And why is it that the only intelligence information that you can come up with is something that any one of us could have figured out? Have you been taking lessons from Bejan Daruwalla?
And India has “pointed the finger at Pakistan”:http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/aug/26blast7.htm
bq. “India’s growth, its success both as a democracy and as a secular country with a large Muslim population, its economic progress are the factors at the root of the neighbour’s hostility. It is wrong to attribute it only to differences over Jammu and Kashmir,” he said during a visit to the metropolis.

The June 2003 issue of Atlantic Monthly has an article by James Fellows titled “Who shot Mohammed Al-Dura”. Al-Dura is the little boy who was shot dead in the arms of his helpless father’s arms during an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Television cameras caught the final moments of his life, when the father and son were crouched behind a concrete barrel, and few moments later, Al-Dura, 12 years old was shot dead. This scene has been repeatedly played in the Arab media to rouse up passion. Many countries have issues stamps in his name and even Osama bin Laden has mentioned him in one his messages.
In this article, analyzing television footage, it establishes that the boy was not killed by Israeli bullets
bq. The fundamental point of the Israeli investigation—that the concrete barrel lay between the outpost and the boy, and no bullets had gone through the barrel—could be confirmed independently from news footage.
From the analysis, the article says that possibility that the boy was killed by Palestinians seems more plausible, as the boy was in their direct line of fire with nothing to obstruct the bullets. But since this article is the result of an Israeli investigation, no one will believe it, even though that appears to be the truth. According to the investigator in the case “The entire goal of the exercise, was to manufacture a child martyr”
Whatever may be the truth, the image has been successfully conveyed that Israelis are killers of innocent children.