ALKHOBAR, 2 June 2004 — With the worst now over and the body count completed, the injured are being treated and the traumatized hostages are working hard to bring their lives back to normal.
The security forces are on high alert throughout the country to make sure that there is no repetition of “Black Saturday” while the hunt continues for the escaped terrorists.
An overview of the chain of events that started Saturday morning and ended with the release of hostages on Sunday morning, finds several questions unanswered.
It is confirmed that the first attack came at 7.25 a.m. on Saturday at the APICORP Compound where four people died, including a 10-year-old Egyptian boy. It is also confirmed that there were four attackers who sprayed bullets all around the area. Barely 20 minutes later the Petroleum Center came under attack, once again by four terrorists. The distance between APICORP and Petroleum Center is about three kilometers. It is also worth mentioning that the APICORP attackers who dragged the body of the Briton, Michael Hamilton, were intercepted at the Sports City by police and there was an exchange of fire.
The first question is: Were the attackers at the compound and the Petroleum Center the same?
The residents of the Oasis housing complex have cited the time of their attack as 7.45. That means that when attackers were shooting at the Petroleum Center, the attack was already in progress at Oasis.
That raises another question: Who were the attackers at the Oasis Compound?
Another set of questions emerges from the events inside the Oasis Compound and the execution of the hostages. It has been established that inside the restaurant where the attackers kept their hostages captive there was not a single American or Briton. It has also been confirmed that there were mainly Indians, Bangladeshis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Filipinos, a Swede and an Italian.
Al-Qaeda, which accepted responsibility for the attack on Alkhobar, has throughout its campaign vociferously expressed its opposition to the United States and its policies. Immediately after the Alkhobar attack, it issued a statement saying its intention was “to teach lessons to America” and make sure that “the Arabian Peninsula was free of American infidels.”
The course of events in Alkhobar, however, showed that the attackers were systematically killing menial workers, most of them Asians. For example, an Indian plumbing supervisor was shot in the head, and a Sri Lankan maintenance man and a Filipino chef were also executed. These menial workers were in no way supportive of America’s stand on Palestine nor did they support the American action in Iraq.
On the contrary, the seven Indians who were killed inside the compound belonged to a country which was among the first to accord recognition to the state of Palestine. Not only this, India also expressed its concern over the American invasion of Iraq and refused to send “peace-keeping” forces to Baghdad. Why, then, were the Indians targeted?
One statement from Al-Qaeda said that the Indians were killed in retaliation for the killings in Kashmir. Does that mean that Al-Qaeda has expanded its operation and intends to attack everyone, anywhere and everywhere?
