JEDDAH, 9 December 2004 — The leader of Monday’s terrorist attack on the US Consulate in Jeddah was a former member of the Kingdom’s religious police, press reports said quoting the man’s relatives.
Fayez Al-Jeheni, who was killed in a gunbattle with Saudi security forces during the attack, had spent time behind bars earlier this year and since kept out of sight, Al-Watan newspaper quoted a cousin as saying.
Saad Al-Sumairy said Jeheni had “turned into an extremist six years ago”. Jeheni, 28, previously worked for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, known as the religious police, before he was sacked “because of bad behavior”, he added. Jeheni’s family in Madinah refused to perform funeral prayers for him in protest against his heinous crime.
People in Madinah’s Duwaima neighborhood, where Saleh Al-Aufi, the present commander of Al-Qaeda cell in the Kingdom was born, have been talking about the death of Aufi, one of the 26 most wanted terrorists, in Monday’s assault on the consulate. But Saudi officials have not yet confirmed the report. Hassan Al-Hazmi, another terrorist killed in the shootout, also belonged to Madinah.
Five non-American consular staff members and contract workers were killed in the storming of the US mission that was claimed by the Saudi branch of the Al-Qaeda terror network. Two American staffers were slightly injured in the attack, which Saudi authorities said ended in the deaths of four assailants and arrest of the fifth. The attack in broad daylight was the first of its kind on a diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia but the latest in a series of bombings and shootings blamed on Al-Qaeda since May 2003.
In a related development, Carol Kalin, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Riyadh, said the US has no immediate plans to move its consulate in Jeddah as a result of the attack. However, she said the highly fortified mission “remains shut.” But the US Embassy itself and the consulate in Dhahran have reopened after a precautionary closure following the Jeddah incident.
