RIYADH, 5 February — Kingdom’s Ambassador to Islamabad Ali Al- Asiri has said that he has been instructed by the Saudi government to find out about the Saudis who have been away from their families for a long time.
"We are now contacting the Pakistani and Afghan governments for more details about some 30 missing Saudis," he added.
Asiri said his embassy has set up special telephone (009201-2820156) and fax (009201-2278816) numbers for those who may be able to help in the investigation.
Two Saudi families have said that they are searching for their two sons, one of them reported to be detained in Kabul by Afghan intelligence and the other by US agencies in Cuba.
They are Zubn ibn Dhahir Zubn Al-Shammary, 20, from Buraidah, and Khaled Saad Al-Bawaredi, from Riyadh.
Shammary, according to his mother, was working as a muazzin (a prayer caller) at a mosque in Buraidah’s Al-Bishr district. The family says he went missing even before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We have had no information about Shammary for the past several months," his mother told Arab News.
Asked how Shammary could have ended up in an Afghan jail, she said her son might have gone to Afghanistan to get military training to fight Israelis in Palestine.
"He was impressed by his uncle, who had been martyred in Afghanistan during the war against Russian occupiers," she recalled.
She expressed happiness at learning that that her son is still alive, and urged the authorities to take steps to bring him home.
The mother of Bawaridy told Arab News that they had heard nothing from him since last August.
"We were surprised to see his name among the detainees linked with Al-Qaeda and the Taleban," she admitted.
She added that Bawaridy had told her that he was going to Abha to engage in some business related to tourism. "In fact, he contacted us after reaching Abha, but later we received no word from him. We never thought that he had gone to Afghanistan for jihad as he had no political interests and had not even grown a beard! He liked football," she explained.
