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Arabia
Car Bomb at Qatar Theatre Kills Briton, Wounds 12
2005-03-19
A car bomb killed one Briton and wounded at least 12 people on Saturday at a theater frequented by Westerners in Qatar, the command center for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq which began exactly two years ago. "The explosion was caused by a rigged car. One person was killed and 12 were wounded, of whom 10 have left hospital," the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried on the state news agency QNA. The British Foreign Office in London said the dead person was a Briton, and added that the nationality and sex of the wounded were not known. Qatari sources said the attack in the capital Doha was carried out by a suicide bomber -- the first attack of its kind in oil-producing Qatar, which hosts the U.S. military's Central Command. Supporters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden have staged attacks in neighboring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but Qatar prides itself on its security and has not experienced suicide bomb attacks before.

A member of the investigating team told Reuters a medium-sized vehicle had slammed into the one-storey building housing the theater, near a British school in Doha. Brigadier General Ahmad al-Hayki of the Interior Ministry told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television the blast had struck the theater cafeteria, and that most of the wounded were Qataris, other Arabs and Asians. Asked if the blast had any links to militant attacks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Hayki said: "We do not want to precede events. We have started gathering evidence."
"What the hell do you think, Chum?"
Anti-U.S. sentiment has been high in the region over the Iraq war and perceived U.S. support for Israel against the Palestinians. An Al Jazeera correspondent on the scene said about 100 people had been inside the Doha Players theater, where William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" had been showing.
Posted by:Fred

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