The month of Ramadan when Muslims all over the world ask God for forgiveness and mercy; the month when the Qur’an came down with the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); the month of prayers, patience, harmony, and good deeds has turned into a deadly series of terrorist blasts in Makkah and Riyadh.
Police forces raided a terrorist cell in Al-Sharei district in Makkah foiling an attack on pilgrims and seizing a large cache of weapons and explosives.
A few days later, and perhaps for the first time in our country, two terrorist incidents happen simultaneously on the same day. Two terrorists from the Makkah cell, refusing to surrender to police, blow themselves up after engaging with police in a gunfight.
And in Riyadh, a gun battle took place in Al-Suwaidi district between Islamist militants and police forces. Sunday, Nov. 9, was the most devastating terrorist attack since May 12.
On Sunday afternoon, I went to the bomb-blasted compound with a colleague. The moment I had passed the entrance, an eerie feeling crept into my veins as I saw the villas with smashed windows, or without any windows at all. Cars riddled with bullet holes were covered with blankets of dust and ashes.
As we continued to walk by the haunted villas, we got closer to the place where the car bombs exploded. I could hear the sounds of bulldozers, jackhammers, trucks and machinery as I got closer. And then suddenly, there it was.
Jackhammers worked their way through twisted metal and rubble. Bulldozers lifted rubble and debris. It looked as though an A-bomb had been dropped on the place. The blast was so powerful that building units, scores of them, were no longer habitable even if they did not collapse. Other buildings still standing were like skeletons. It would be a matter of time until they too would have to be knocked down. “Good lord,” I said to myself as I walked in the rubble.
I could see the remains of innocence. A twisted bike, a pillow buried in the rubble, even a small mattress stained with blood. According to the Filipino workers hired by the municipality, several of the bodies pulled from beneath the rubble were children.
The car bomb caused windows to crack in the Diplomatic Quarter one kilometer away. It also created a crater in the ground that was six feet deep and 15 feet wide.
Never before in my life had I seen so much devastation and wreckage firsthand. I will never forget it as long as I live, and I pray to God that it will be the last bomb-struck area I have to visit in Saudi Arabia.
Just before leaving the compound, I got into conversation with one of its residents who was watching the chaos. His face was filled with shock and disbelief as he looked on. “I am a doctor and I treat Catholics, Muslims, and followers of all different faiths... in the end, though, they are all humans,” he told me.
“Somebody has got to listen to these people — the terrorists — and see what they want. People living in this compound were not Westerners, they were Arabs. Do they think we are infidels because some women here do not cover their hair or wear abayas? If that is the case, there are methods in Islam for propagating your message. Propagation is not blowing up buildings and killing children,” he said angrily. As I was leaving I asked myself: “Why did the terrorists target a compound where Arab expatriates lived?”
The fact that they committed these heinous acts in Islam’s holy month and in the holy city of Makkah should leave no one in any doubt that these people are followers of the devil not of God or any religion. One thing is clear. These terrorists are losing their battle. They thought that such attacks and others would make Saudis revolt against the government and our leadership, but what has happened is the exact opposite.
Saudis are more patriotic than ever under the leadership of the country. They are setting aside their differences and are determined to fight one common enemy— extremism.
