Saudis vow to protect Mecca, Medina from rebels

[Sally]

No doubt they will have a lot of help from other Sunni countries if they have to do this.
Saudis vow to protect Mecca, Medina from rebels
Source: CNN

Fri April 3, 2015

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Saudi military forces are beefing up security along their border with Yemen, piling up sandbags and machine guns as tensions build.

http://us.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/04/03/pkg-robertson-saudi-arabia-yemen-borde

 

[waltky]

Too bad they couldn't protect it from karma on the anniversary of the WTC attack...

Saudis: 107 dead in crane collapse at Mecca's Grand Mosque
Sept.11,`15 -- A towering construction crane toppled over on Friday during a violent rainstorm in the Saudi city of Mecca, Islam's holiest site, crashing into the Grand Mosque and killing at least 107 people ahead of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage later this month.

Images posted by social media users showed a grisly scene, with police and onlookers attending to numerous bodies lying amid pools of blood on the polished mosque floors. Saudi Arabia's civil defense authority provided a series of rising casualty numbers on its official Twitter account as ambulances whisked the wounded to area hospitals. As of early Saturday, it said those injured in the disaster numbered 238. A photo released by the authority showed police and workers in hardhats inspecting a pile of collapsed concrete slabs inside a part of the sprawling, ornately decorated mosque. Another showed the base of the toppled red-and-white crane tilted upward at a sharp angle.

Images aired on Saudi state television showed the crane's metal boom smashed through what appeared to be the roof of the mosque. Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Mansouri, the spokesman for the presidency of the Mecca and Medina mosque affairs, said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency that the accident happened late Friday afternoon during a severe storm carrying strong winds and heavy rain. Authorities did not provide details on the victims' nationalities, but it was likely that the tragedy will touch several countries.

Pilgrims and first responders gather at the site of a crane collapse that killed dozens inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Sept. 11, 2015. The accident happened as pilgrims from around the world converged on the city, Islam's holiest site, for the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which takes place this month.

The Grand Mosque and the cube-shaped Kaaba within it draw Muslims of all types from around the world throughout the year, though numbers increase significantly in the run-up to the hajj. The mosque is Islam's holiest site to which Muslims face in daily prayers and a central site among the hajj rituals. Performing the pilgrimage once during one's lifetime is a duty for all able-bodied adult Muslims. This year's pilgrimage is expected to start around Sept. 22. Al-Mansouri said the crane, which was being used in construction work at the mosque, struck a circular area around the Kaaba and a nearby walkway.

Pan-satellite Al-Jazeera Television broadcast footage from inside the mosque compound said to be from the aftermath of the accident, showing the floor strewn with rubble and what appear to be pools of blood. Another video, on a Twitter posting, captured the apparent moment of the red-and-white crane's collapse during a heavy rainstorm, with a loud boom, screams and confusion. The governor of the Mecca region, Prince Khalid al-Faisal, quickly called for the formation of a committee to investigate the cause of the accident. He directed all appropriate authorities to provide support for all of those injured, according to a statement from Mecca principality public affairs head Sultan al-Dosari that was carried on SPA. Other Saudi officials could not immediately be reached or referred queries to the civil defense statements.

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[skye]

yes ....too bad they couldn't protect it from the crane that collapsed and killed so many today

 

[waltky]

Another day that will live in infamy...

Relatives Gather to Remember 9/11 -- 'As Long as I'm Breathing, I'll Be Here,' Says 81-Year-Old Father Whose Son Was Killed
September 11, 2015 — Relatives of Sept. 11 victims marked the anniversary of the terror attacks Friday at ground zero with grief, gratitude and appeals to keep the toll front of mind after the passage of 14 years.

Over 1,000 people — fewer than thronged the observance in its early years — gathered for what has become a tradition of tolling bells, moments of silence and the reading of the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror strikes at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. "We come every year. The crowds get smaller, but we want to be here. As long as I'm breathing, I'll be here," said Tom Acquaviva, 81, who lost his son, Paul Acquaviva. Carrying photos emblazoned with the names of their loved ones, victims' relatives praised first responders, thanked the armed forces and hoped for peace and security: "Pray to our God to keep America safe and give the politicians the knowledge to keep America safe," said Maria Perez, who lost her son, Anthony Perez.

One woman in the crowd collapsed during the ceremony, apparently overcome by grief; bystanders helped her to her feet. But mostly, victims' relatives sent personal messages of enduring loss and remembrance to loved ones some had never even had the chance to know. "Please know," Kristin Vanacore said to the memory of her brother, Edward Raymond Vanacore, "that you and all of the other victims will never be forgotten." In Washington, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stepped out of the White House at 8:46 a.m. — when the first plane hit the north tower — to observe a moment of silence. Later Friday, President Obama was scheduled to observe the anniversary with a visit to Fort Meade, Maryland, in recognition of the military's work to protect the country.

In this Sept. 11, 2014 file photo, David Pykon, right, and his fiancé Shelli Scrimale embrace while observing the 13th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center at the north pool of the memorial in New York. Pykon's brother, Edward Pykon, was killed during the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Nearly a decade and a half after hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center’s twin towers, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the anniversary continues to be marked with observances around the country.

The Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania was marking the completion of its $26 million visitor center, which opened to the public Thursday. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other officials were joining in remembrances for victims' relatives and Pentagon employees. Sacramento, California, was commemorating 9/11 in conjunction with a parade honoring three friends who tackled a heavily armed gunman on a Paris-bound high-speed train last month. Two tunnels in Idaho Springs, Colorado, were renamed the Veterans Memorial Tunnels, and a cross-shaped steel sculpture taken from the rubble of the World Trade Center went on display at Dallas Love Field airport.

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See also:

Giuliani on 9/11 Anniversary: This War Is Not Over
September 11, 2015 – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that unlike Pearl Harbor, this war is not over, and the threat is greater today than before 9/11.

“We can fool ourselves with this memorial and museum and everything else into thinking this is over. This isn’t Pearl Harbor. You know there’s a museum there, and that war’s over. This war is still. Every single reason for that attack is festering in parts of the world right now,” said Giuliani, adding that the threat is “intensified and diversified." “The Islamic terrorist threat to America is greater today than it was before September 11,” he said. As the nation marked the 14th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, Giuliani reflected on what he called the “worst day” of his life and the “worst day in the life of the history of the city, and maybe the greatest day, because of all the heroism and terrific acts of kindness and the unbelievable things people did to save each other.”

He said an hour after the 9/11 attacks began, he was told by the White House that more attacks were coming and there were specifically seven planes that were still unaccounted for. Giuliani, who has been dubbed “America’s mayor,” said at the time, he was informed by the FBI and the police department that “this might trigger smaller suicide attacks, meaning that this might be a trigger for a whole massive number of attacks.” Before 9/11, the city “expected a terrorist attack,” Giuliani said. “We were even warned of terrorist attacks that turned out not to happen. We had a terrorist attack that was thwarted by the police department by shooting the terrorist, who was headed for a toggle switch,” which took place two years prior to 9/11.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Although Giuliani had established an office of emergency management, specifically in case of a terrorist attack, the city did not expect an attack of that magnitude. “We thought of I think every scenario possible, but not airplanes being used as missiles, crashing into our buildings. We expected terrorist attacks like the ones that in those days were going on Israel,” he said. Giuliani expected that someone might try to blow up the World Trade Center again. “We arrested many terrorists. We would find them with plans, plans for the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the subways, the tunnels, plans for the Stock Exchange, and the World Trade Center, but the idea was more like there would be a suicide bombing, and we had drills preparing for that kind of attack. We had a drill once right in front of the World Trade Center preparing for a sarin gas attack on a political rally,” he said.

The former mayor said when he arrived on the scene of the 9/11 attacks, he saw a man jumping from the 101st floor. “I grabbed the commissioner’s arm, and I said: ‘Gosh we planned for everything, but we don’t have a plan for this one, and we’re just going to have to pray to God that we got it right,’” he said. “September 10, the world was one way and by September 11, we’re in a new world, and the unfortunate part of it is we’re still in it. We’re still in that war,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani on 9/11 Anniversary: This War Is Not Over

Related:

9/11—Thousands Would Die, But One Would Be Saved
September 11, 2015 | Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published on Breitbart's Big Hollywood, Sept. 11, 2009.

I must admit to some snobbery. My kind didn’t become cops. My kind didn’t become fireman. We went to college as simply a rite of passage and became the “Masters of the Universe” holding meetings with others like us on the top floors of buildings like those in the World Trade Center complex. In fact, I, at the age of twenty-three, had an office on the 106th floor of building number one with an unquestioned entitlement to it for no other reason than that was the way of the world.

The kids from the Bronx with the accents became fireman. The kid from Queens with the gaudy chains and the girlfriend with the big hair became cops. People who worked with their hands, people who risked their lives, I am now terribly embarrassed and ashamed to say, were thought of as just of another kind, the kind that my Leftist friends continue to deride as being from “fly-over country,” or from Kansas where the people have something “the matter” with them.

The twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York, Sept. 11, 2001. In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center causing the twin 110-story towers to collapse.

9/11 made that narrative impossible for me to cling to any longer. It may have taken days, weeks, months and years for all my ingrained bigotries to subside, but in those horrific moments when the Masters of the Universe were helpless, and those I had been culturally bigoted against ran up those stairs it became impossible for me to cling to them any longer.

The lies of the Left would never be so clearly exposed – except in their future defense of those lies – as they were that day when those heroes did not call in sick as they saw the morning news, but answered the call, and did not stand by as they would have had there been any truth to Leftist dogma, clapping and shouting about “The chickens coming home to roost.” They risked it all – many gave all – because that’s what heroes do. On that day, 8 years ago now – their children of ten now almost twenty – my heart goes out to their loved ones and I thank them. And I ask them to know, how many others their loved ones may or may not have been able to save, on that day, eight years ago today, they saved me.

9/11—Thousands Would Die, But One Would Be Saved