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- Sep 14, 2004
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Saudi-Wahhabi perpetrated attrocities against Americans and Iraqis continue:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-bomber4jan04,1,3051815.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
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http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/pfriendly.php?url=/postopinion/opedcolumnists/37641.htmArab Paper Identifies Mess Hall Bomber
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v-lite/story/4400783p-4180191c.html
MAAMOUN YOUSSEF; The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt The suicide bomber who killed 22 people when he blew himself up in a U.S. mess hall in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was a Saudi medical student, an Arab newspaper reported Monday.
Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat identified him as 20-year-old Ahmed Said Ahmed al-Ghamdi, citing unnamed friends of the mans father. The friends said members of an Iraqi resistance group contacted al-Ghamdis father to tell him his son was the suicide bomber who carried out the Dec. 21 attack, the deadliest on an American installation in Iraq.
The blast killed six local soldiers, the largest number of casualties sustained at one time by either of the two Stryker brigades that have gone to Iraq from Fort Lewis.
Those killed were Capt. William W. Jacobsen, Jr., 31; Staff Sgt. Robert S. Johnson, 23; Staff Sgt. Julian S. Melo, 47; Staff Sgt. Darren D. VanKomen, 33; Spc. Jonathan Castro, 21; and Pfc. Lionel Ayro, 22.
The father of the Saudi student refused to discuss the suicide bombing, but told the newspaper his son had gone to Iraq to fight the Americans and had died there. The family held a mourning ceremony, the paper said.
The Associated Press was unable to reach Saudi security officials for comment despite repeated telephone calls Monday.
The U.S.-led coalition that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has faced fierce resistance, most of it carried out by Saddam loyalists or Iraqi nationalists. Some of the deadliest attacks, though, have been blamed on non-Iraqi Muslim extremists.
U.S. officials have said their preliminary investigation indicates the bomber was dressed in an Iraqi military uniform but was not an Iraqi soldier when he slipped into a mess tent packed with soldiers eating lunch in northern Iraq.
Ansar al-Sunnah, a radical Islamic Iraqi group that has been active in northern Iraq, claimed responsibility for the mess hall attack. In a videotape posted on the Web, Ansar al-Sunnah identified the suicide bomber as Abu Omar al-Musali an apparent nom de guerre meaning Abu Omar of Mosul.
The man identified as Abu Omar al-Musali appeared in the Web video wearing an explosives-laden vest, but did not speak. Another man described how the operation had been planned. A subsequent segment showed what appeared to have been the attack.
Asharq al-Awsat said al-Ghamdi started studying medicine in Sudan when his father worked and lived there. Al-Ghamdi stayed to complete his studies when his family returned to Saudi Arabia, the paper reported, without saying when the family left.
It said the father said he learned Dec. 16 that his son had withdrawn all the money left in a Sudanese bank account for him and later received a phone call from his son telling him that he was in Iraq to fight the Americans.
Three members of the al-Ghamdi clan were also among the Sept. 11 hijackers.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-bomber4jan04,1,3051815.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
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