JEDDAH, 31 March 2003 — Saudi Arabia has denied a report that a suicide bomber who killed an Australian cameraman in northern Iraq earlier this month was a Saudi national. “It’s not at all true. He could not have been a Saudi national. Everything that is being said in this respect is incorrect,” Interior Minister Prince Naif told reporters late Saturday night.
Reuters news agency named the bomber as a 23-year-old Saudi man, Abdul Aziz Saud Al-Gharbi, quoting an independent news gathering group in Washington. It said Abdul Aziz left the Kingdom last October to join Ansar Al-Islam, a militant group based in northern Iraq.
Cameraman Paul Moran, 39, from Adelaide and two others were killed in the March 22 attack outside Khurmal village. Moran had just finished filming at a base thought to belong to Ansar Al-Islam when the blast took place.
