No image available
/ 28 February 2006
The leader of the al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia, Fahd bin Faraj al-Joweir, was among five militants killed in a shootout in Riyadh on Monday, the Saudi interior ministry announced. "Joweir (36) … had taken charge of the criminal cells," after other leading members were eliminated by security forces, the ministry said.
No image available
/ 14 February 2006
Young Saudis defied on Tuesday the ultra-conservative kingdom’s ban on Valentine’s Day celebrations to exchange sweets, red teddy bears, greeting cards, roses and even kisses. On the night before Valentine’s young men and women strolled up and down the Tahliya shopping avenue in the western city of Jeddah, browsing at heart-shaped chocolate boxes and the red lingerie.
No image available
/ 16 January 2006
Was it God’s will or human error that killed 439 in two separate incidents during this year’s annual pilgrimage to Mecca? That’s the question which many pilgrims were pondering as they bid the holy city farewell. The hajj began on January 8, three days after the collapse of an aging hostel in the heart of Mecca killed 76 people, and ended on Thursday with 363 pilgrims dead in a stampede.
No image available
/ 13 January 2006
Stricken families were hunting for their loved ones on Friday after a stampede that killed 362 Muslims at the annual hajj — a disaster Saudi authorities have blamed on unruly pilgrims. Weeping in front of a wall of pictures of dead pilgrims, families continued to seek news of missing relatives at the morgue in Mina, where the stampede took place.
No image available
/ 13 January 2006
At least 345 Muslim pilgrims were trampled to death on Thursday as they tripped over luggage in a scramble to hurl pebbles at symbols of Satan during the annual pilgrimage, Saudi officials said. It was the latest in a succession of stampede tragedies to hit the hajj pilgrimage despite efforts by Saudi authorities to avoid a repeat of disasters like the one that killed 1Â 426 people in 1990.
No image available
/ 12 January 2006
At least 85 people were killed on Thursday in a stampede at the procession symbolising the stoning of the devil during the annual hajj pilgrimage, medical sources said. ”The number of killed is 85, and the figure is due to rise because most of the victims are in critical condition,” said one medical source.
No image available
/ 12 January 2006
At least 345 people were killed on Thursday in a stampede at the procession symbolising the stoning of the devil during the annual pilgrimage, said Saudi Health Minister Hamad bin Abdullah al-Maneh. About 289 other pilgrims were wounded in the accident due to "unruly pilgrims, and a problem of luggage," al-Maneh told reporters.
No image available
/ 10 January 2006
Muslims around the world as well as those performing the annual pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia celebrate on Tuesday the Feast of Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday in the Islamic calendar. The festival is celebrated with the ritual slaughter of animals to commemorate Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son to God.
About 2,5-million Muslims from around the world began the second day of the hajj pilgrimage gathering on Monday on the Arafat Plain near Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the most important ritual in the five-day event. Pilgrims began moving from Mina to Arafat at sunrise in buses or on foot after spending the night in tents.
An estimated 2,5-million Muslim pilgrims began the annual trek on Sunday from the holy city of Mecca to the valley of Mina, with Saudi authorities on high alert to prevent another tragedy. The pilgrimage rites, known as the hajj, start three days after an ageing hostel in the heart of Mecca collapsed, killing 76 people.
Survivors of the collapse of a hostel in the holy city of Mecca recounted on Friday the horror of the latest tragedy to strike the hajj as the death toll rose to 76. ”I heard one big noise,” said Tayeb Mizasha (70), a Frenchman of Algerian origin, as he lay in bed in Mecca’s King Faisal hospital with broken ribs and a bruised face.
The death toll from the collapse of an ageing hostel in the holy city of Mecca rose to 53 on Friday, as Saudi rescue teams hunted through the rubble for survivors. The multistorey hotel collapsed on Thursday in the latest deadly tragedy to mark the hajj or annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.
Twenty-three Muslim pilgrims were killed and scores more wounded in the Saudi holy city of Mecca on Thursday when a building collapsed in the latest tragedy to hit the annual hajj, a witness said. Rescue teams were scrambled to search for survivors after the collapse, which happened in the heart of the city.
Holding rainbow-coloured golf umbrellas above their heads to shade themselves from the sun, members of the Saudi royal family buried King Fahd on Tuesday in an unmarked grave at a public cemetery in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia moved quickly on Monday to reassure the world that the death of King Fahd would not bring turmoil or a sudden change of direction to the world’s largest oil exporter. Crown Prince Abdullah, who had been in day-to-day charge for almost a decade after a stroke incapacitated the king, was immediately declared monarch.
Saudi Arabia’s ruler, King Fahd, died early on Monday in a Riyadh hospital where he was admitted on May 27 for unspecified medical tests. His brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, has been announced the country’s new monarch, the Saudi royal court said in a statement.
Security forces have killed 15 Islamic militants in four days, including three on the most-wanted list, in the most intensive fighting seen to date in Saudi Arabia’s two-year war on terror — a sign the kingdom may have al-Qaeda on the defensive. Interior Minister Prince Nayef warned militants: ”Either come back to your senses or you’ll face death.”
No image available
/ 18 January 2005
Chanting ”Oh Allah I’m here”, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims draped in white garments on Tuesday began to take part in rituals symbolising the life of their seventh-century prophet and streaming into the mammoth tent city of Mina. Two million people travel to the holy cities in Saudi Arabia each year to participate in the hajj pilgrimage.
No image available
/ 17 January 2005
Dressed in a seamless white robe, Algerian pilgrim Tayyeb Bouguettaya circled the Kaaba several times on Monday with a prayer booklet in one hand and a cellphone in the other, reciting religious mantras in unison with his wife a continent away. Modern technology has changed the way Muslims experience the hajj pilgrimage.
No image available
/ 16 December 2004
Al-Qaeda supporters detained in Saudi Arabia have appeared in a television documentary about al-Haer jail, 40km south of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and delivered rave reviews of life inside. ”I swear to God, they [the jailers] are nicer than our parents,” said Othman al-Amri, once number 21 on the kingdom’s list of most-wanted terror suspects.
No image available
/ 6 December 2004
Gunmen suspected of links to al-Qaeda stormed the United States consulate in the Saudi port of Jeddah on Monday, triggering a three-hour siege and a shootout that left three attackers and four guardsmen dead, police and officials said. The brazen attack was the first of its kind on a diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia.
When Fadel Gheit first warned of his ”nightmare scenario” that Saudi Arabia’s main oil export terminal at Ras Tanura could be wiped out by terrorists, he was dismissed as an alarmist. It was the week after the September 11 attacks in New York, where he is based. But the oil analyst began to think there was another target that would have an even more devastating impact if hit.
A huge suicide car bomb ripped the facade off the headquarters of the Saudi domestic security forces in the capital, Riyadh, on Wednesday. Islamist militants, allied to al-Qaeda and intent on overthrowing the regime, were immediately blamed.
Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most male-dominated countries, is preparing to break with tradition and risk the wrath of religious conservatives by allowing women to take part in its first elections.
Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin has come out of a coma and his condition is improving, a source at a hospital in this Red Sea city said on Wednesday.
Idi Amin Dada, whose eight-year presidency of African nation Uganda is remembered by the torture and murder of more than 200 000 people, is in a coma in a Saudi hospital, medical staff at the hospital said on Sunday.
A top militant and al-Qaeda member wanted in connection with the Riyadh suicide bombings killed himself on Thursday, an interior ministry official said.