RIYADH, 19 June 2004 — US hostage Paul Johnson has been beheaded by his captors.
Hours later Saudi security forces reportedly gunned down the suspected leader of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin.
Several websites published pictures of 49-year-old Johnson’s body, while the chief of Al-Arabiya TV’s Riyadh operation said he saw a video of the beheading.
A website calling itself “The Voice of Jihad” published a statement purportedly from the captors saying the beheading “fulfills the promise of the Fallujah Brigade to behead the American hostage Paul Marshal when the ultimatum for the Saudi government was over.”
The group had previously identified itself as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Security forces later found the body in a rest house in the Al-Muwanisiyah district.
Johnson, an engineer working on Apache helicopters for US defense contractor Lockheed Martin, was kidnapped in Riyadh last Saturday. His captors on Tuesday threatened to kill him within 72 hours unless numerous extremists were released from prison and “infidels” removed from the Arab Peninsula.
The website showed three pictures of Johnson’s severed head. One showed the bloodied head propped up on the back of a body in an orange uniform with a knife on the face. A second picture showed a hand lifting up the head and a third showed the body and the severed head from a different angle.
“This American hostage got what he deserved,” the statement said. “He tasted what many Muslims tasted from the fire of Apache helicopter attacks.
“We are moving forward to fight the enemies of Allah and to avenge our brothers in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and the Arabian Peninsula.
“To Americans and to infidels united in a war against Islam, this is retaliation and a lesson to those that come to our country: This will be their fate,” it added.
Johnson’s widow Thanom, 31, was in a state of shock, said Thai Embassy spokesman Sawai Pidmuang. “This is not the time to speak to her,” he added.
A massive hunt for Johnson’s captors in the capital culminated at around 10 p.m. last night with the killing of two wanted terrorists in the Al-Malaz district. Arabic TV stations said one of the killed was Al-Qaeda chief in Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin. Two others escaped. Helicopters hovered at low altitude as security forces shut off the intersection of Sitteen Street and Al-Jammah Street and a fierce gunbattle erupted.
Several security officers were injured and taken to Security Forces Hospital.
Al-Muqrin was also the prime suspect in a slew of other attacks on Westerners in the Kingdom
There were also reports of an arrest in Qassim. In Dammam, security forces surrounded a house in Al-Zohoor neighborhood and arrested a suspect and seized his computer.
Eyewitnesses said police surrounded the house of an STC employee “of extremist leanings” in the neighborhood at 4 p.m.
Yesterday morning, police surrounded Al-Jazirah neighborhood backed by army teams and special forces and widened their search to mountain caves and farms outside the capital. Security forces deployed in the desert as far as 10 km outside Riyadh after three days of searching the capital for Johnson.
More than 15,000 Saudi officers patrolled the Suwaidi, Dhahar Al-Budaih and Badr districts from Thursday night through Friday morning. Police went door-to-door in some neighborhoods, an official said. More than 1,200 Saudi homes had been searched by Thursday night.
The official said the FBI had sent a team of about 20 specialists in hostage rescue, hostage negotiations, profiling and other specialties who were working with Saudi officials.
An imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah had earlier added his voice to a chorus of pleas for Johnson’s release.
“Listen to the words of Sheikh Al-Islam demanding the release of captives: ‘We cannot accept anything other than the release of all Jewish and Christian captives. They are under our protection’,” Sheikh Saleh Bin-Humaid told hundreds of thousands of worshippers who thronged the vast mosque complex. Sheikh Al-Islam, or Ibn Taymiyyah, said this “despite the fact that he was at war with the Crusaders,” Bin-Humaid said, his voice breaking at several points as he called for an end to violence and urged extremists to repent.
“In Islam, it is not permissible to harm them or attack them, neither in terms of their lives nor properties... Even when it comes to argument, we Muslims were ordered to use the gentlest ways,” he said.
His sermon, aired live on Saudi TV after Johnson’s wife Thanom appealed for his release on Al-Arabiya. “I want him to come back... I have nobody to take care of me,” she said.
A source said the imam of one of the biggest mosques in Jeddah led special prayers for Johnson’s safe return.
Former Deputy Minister of the Interior Ibrahim Awaji acknowledged the security forces’ shortcomings on Saudi TV yesterday.
“Our security apparatus is not well trained in combating terrorism, but they are learning,” Awaji said on a discussion program.
He added that the Interior Ministry could not defeat terrorism without greater cooperation from the people.
US President George W. Bush vowed to hunt down the killers and warned that the United States would not “retreat from the world”.
His words were part of an outpouring of condemnation from official circles in Washington.
US Vice President Dick Cheney said the terrorists “have no shame, not a shred of decency”. US Secretary of State Colin Powell called the killing “barbaric”.
The US Embassy denounced the execution as an “inhumane crime” and urged the Saudi government to hunt down his killers and other Al-Qaeda terrorists. “The inhumanity of the crime exceeds all boundaries of civilized peoples,” US Ambassador James Oberwetter said in a statement. “We urge the government of Saudi Arabia to continue its efforts to bring Paul Johnson’s murderers to account, as well as those who carried out other terrorist crimes.”
Embassy official Carol Kalin said separately: “Unfortunately our assessment is that there is a good probability that the attacks will continue.” Kalin said the embassy would not close.
— Mohammed Rasooldeen and Al-Munif Al-Sasoghi contributed to this report
