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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Failed Saudi boomer angry at those who sent him |
| 2005-01-26 |
| His head and hands were wrapped in bandages and his uncovered face looked like bubbled tar. The young Saudi man told investigators this month that he wants revenge against the Iraqi terrorist network that sent him on the deadly mission that he survived. Ahmed Abdullah al-Shaya, 18, told Iraqi investigators during an interrogation early this month that he was recruited to drive a car rigged with explosives to Baghdad and blow it up. He said the objective was "to kill the Americans, policemen, national guards and the American collaborators." But Shaya said he was injured even before he went on the mission when insurgents detonated a truck bomb he was supposed to leave at a target site. Shaya's statements were captured on a videotape made by Interior Ministry officials who interrogated him. It is not clear whether the video captures all of the interrogation or part of it. USA TODAY obtained a copy of the tape from an Interior Ministry official. Shaya's video statement describes the journey of a young man ready to die in his zeal to drive Americans from Arab lands. Shaya says he left Saudi Arabia for Syria in late October, right after the holy month of Ramadan, which began in late October. A smuggler he knew as Abu Mohammed took him over the border into Iraq and into the hands of other Islamic extremists who call themselves mujahedin, or holy warriors. In Iraq, he traveled first to Qaim, then Rawa, and finally to the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, where he spent 1œ months with like-minded Muslims from Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and Macedonia. Most, however, were Iraqis, he says, gesturing with his gauze-wrapped arms. While he was awaiting his mission, he says, he was told that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of a terrorist network responsible for numerous bombings and beheadings, had been captured by Iraqi police only to be let go after seven hours because they didn't recognize him. Iraqi officials have declined to comment on previous reports that Zarqawi had been captured and let go. Shaya moved to Baghdad in December to prepare for his final mission, which he expected to be as the suicide pilot of a bomb-laden car. But on Dec. 24, he was given a preliminary job of driving a butane-gas delivery truck that was rigged with bombs. It wasn't supposed to be a suicide mission. "They asked me to take the truck near a concrete block barrier before turning to the right and leaving it there. There, somebody will pick up the truck from you," they told him. "But they blew me up in the truck," he says. When the gas truck ignited into a fireball near the Jordanian Embassy, nine people were killed, including a family of seven whose house collapsed on them. The explosion burned Shaya on his face and hands but he was thrown from the cab and survived. Authorities at first didn't know who he was. But then a local Baghdad newspaper carried a report from Saudi Arabia about his family mourning his martyrdom. Shaya told the interrogators that he regretted his mission now. "I want the Iraqi people to live in peace," he says, and he can no longer support Osama bin Laden because "he is killing Muslims." As for the Zarqawi network that sent him on the mission that left him permanently disfigured and in prison, he says, "I want revenge for what they have done to me." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 "But Shaya said he was injured even before he went on the mission when insurgents detonated a truck bomb he was supposed to leave at a target site" I guess this means he was still in the truck! ""They asked me to take the truck near a concrete block barrier before turning to the right and leaving it there. There, somebody will pick up the truck from you," they told him. "But they blew me up in the truck," he says." Now gather around all you young boomers and boomerettes, I got some sagely advice for you. NEVER GIVE UP THE REMOTE CONTROL!! |
| Posted by: TomAnon 2005-01-26 7:35:45 PM |