DAMMAM, 1 June 2004 — It was the most terrifying moment of Shadi’s life when he encountered the three fugitive terrorists in the small hours of Sunday in Dammam.
Shadi, a Palestinian, was returning home from late-night shopping in Dammam. As he approached his home in the Tobaishi area and slowed his car three gunmen blocked the way and asked him to step out of his car.
“I was absolutely terrified. It was a nightmare and I thought I was going to die,” he said.
The three fugitives, seeing his anxiety, tried to calm him down. “They started to explain their mission, but my mind was so numb that I could not comprehend what they were saying,” he said.
“My initial fear was that they were going to take me hostage and I asked them not to. I said if they wanted they could kill me,” Shadi said.
He said he was more worried for his father than himself as his father was a heart patient. “Had they taken me as a hostage my father would not have survived the shock.”
He could recall scraps of their conversation. “They said that they were not terrorists but mujahideen and were fighting American imperialism and Zionism. ‘We don’t want to hurt ordinary people; our targets are Americans and Westerners,” they told me.”
After some 15 minutes of this, they took his car, a 1992 Caprice, and left. “They looked calm and unfazed,” he said.
It was only afterward that the whole incident sunk in. “I was trembling, my mouth went dry and I couldn’t stand still,” he said. Once he recovered a little, he called the police.
Meanwhile a Christian Arab who was held captive in the Oasis Compound has described how he lied to the terrorists about his faith and got away with it.
Nizar Hajazeen, a Jordanian software businessman who was at the Tower hotel during the hostage drama, said the militants lectured him about Islam.
Hajazeen, 32, had tried to call a cab to go to work on Saturday but the phone lines were jumbled. “I went down and the Filipino receptionist told me there were terrorists in the compound and gunshots were heard,” he said. He tried to help security guards close the hotel entrance gate but the lock did not work and a manager recommended he hide, Hajazeen said.
“I went to the room of a Jordanian colleague. Someone banged violently on the door. We opened and there were two men, one with a machinegun, and another with a revolver. They were wearing black track suits,” he said, adding that one had a wounded arm. Both were in their twenties.
“They asked us if we were Arab or Westerners. We told them: ‘We’re Arab’.
“One then asked if I was a Christian or a Muslim. I told him we were Muslims and showed him my colleague’s Qur’an as proof. I told him we supported them and that we were against America and Europe. I had to say that.”
— with input from Reuters
