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In this file two news articles, the first tells about
the execution of it all. Some 'wider perspective' while the second article
is an eyewitness report from people living at that scene.
May be a lot of 'political correct' (meaning people who are allowed to
spread their wisdom on television and stuff like that) will wonder why
this kind of attacks did not happen during the Iraqi war (although there
was a blast in Haifa or so as some 'gift' to the Iraqi people). A lot of
reasons are brought up already and now I first quote the American
secretary of State and after that place another reason to the 'lack of
attacks'
(Quote from Colin Powel, the American secretary of State
during the so called WarOnTerror):
It was very well executed and it shows the nature of the enemy we are working against,' said US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who toured the site on Tuesday. -- Los Angeles Times, Reuters, AFP
Reinko comments; Let me give another reason why there were
no attacks during that war. One could argue that the evil international
operating terror figures were thinking a bit like 'Well Reinko, you
brought yourself into that Iraqi shit; so try to get out of it yourself!'
To me it feels a bit like some 'test' and I hope I passed this test... Let
me make no fun of this all, to many people did die to make fun already.
Lets read quotes:
Shoot and blast.
The attacks in Riyadh were very well coordinated and carried out with military
precision.
RIYADH - It was calculated down to a matter of seconds, and it unfolded in less than a minute.
The clock started ticking around 11.20 pm on Monday. With stopwatch precision, the American sedan - accounts vary on whether it was a white Crown Victoria or a grey Mercury - drove up the narrow street to the guardhouse of the Vinnell Corp compound, passing a sign on the high perimeter wall that warns, 'Visitors must be escorted'.
Like many expatriate compounds in the Saudi capital, security at Vinnell was especially tight.
The complex of low, sand- coloured buildings houses US trainers for the Saudi National Guard, which protects the royal family.
Maybe the guards saw it was an American car and did not react until it was too late.
In a brief shootout, three guards armed with a 50- mm machine gun on a truck across the road from the guardhouse were killed or injured.
Sentries in the guardhouse itself were overpowered; their fate is unclear. At some point, the shooters jumped from the sedan. Their job almost done, they lowered the barrier barring entry.
'It was your typical operation. You kill the guards, you push the button, you let yourself in,' one officer said. 'All this took 30 seconds to a minute.'
A Dodge Ram truck then speeded through, took the first left turn and drove a block to a four-storey apartment block housing 70 trainers, mainly Americans.
Finally, it took a quick right and stopped a few metres down the road - to just the right point for maximum impact, according to a tentative reconstruction by US military officials on Tuesday.
Then the bomb inside the Dodge was detonated - probably by the driver.
The explosion, estimated by the US military to be the equivalent of a 180-kg bomb and probably made of a sophisticated materiel such as Semtex or RVX, sheared the face off the apartment block.
Concrete, glass, furniture and sleeping inhabitants were hurled in all directions.
The explosion left a massive crater in the road at last three metres deep and three metres wide, according to US military estimates.
The attack on the buildings belonging to Vinnell - a subsidiary of US defence contractor Northrop Grumman - was the last of three bombings that shook Riyadh on Monday night.
Within about five minutes, two bombs ripped through other residential compounds for foreigners in Riyadh, killing at least 30 people, according to Saudi officials.
The tight sequence of events, timed so no one attack might lead to alerts and lockdowns elsewhere in the capital, was meticulously planned, US military and Saudi officials said.
'It was very well executed and it shows the nature of the enemy we are working against,' said US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who toured the site on Tuesday. -- Los Angeles Times, Reuters, AFP
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And another article (from the Washington Post):
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'It looked like a cruise missile fell into the place'
RIYADH - At first, Mrs Elif Berkel heard what sounded like the click-clack of a wheeled suitcase on the kerb outside her apartment.
Someone was coming home from a long weekend, she thought.
When the sound got louder, she and husband Jelal wondered whether it was a family in their gated Al-Hamra community celebrating a wedding by firing into the air.
The Turkish couple finally decided it must be fireworks and slid open the glass door of their living room to take a look.
A huge orange fireball covered the sky.
'It looks like a cruise missile or a Tomahawk or Scud missile fell into the place,' recalled Mr Berkel on Tuesday.
The blast hurled them onto a wall 3 m away.
At almost the same time - 11.25 on Monday night - blasts also occurred in Vinnell and Gedawal, two other gated communities in Riyadh.
At Al-Hamra, a Jordanian engineer identified only as Momen, 34, said he believed the bombers had tailed his guests into the compound at about 11 pm.
'We knew that a truck had got through the main gates and into the heart of the compound,' he told BBC News Online.
'We heard a burst of gunfire and I went out thinking I should see what was going on.
'I thought I heard a hand grenade, then there was an enormous explosion which shook the house.
'A 100-m column of fire shot up into the sky, there was smoke, black smoke ... it was horrible.
The Berkels, including their three-year-old son, suffered only bruises and sore elbows.
Their home was 50 m away from the blast.
They listed people they knew in the villas in the compound centre, where the vehicle blew up - two little Jordanian girls, whose father was in a coma; a man from Lebanon; and at least seven or eight others.
Mr Jelal, a business executive, took out his video camera and showed pictures taken the next morning: huge window frames blown onto people's beds, entire walls demolished.
The compounds are a legacy of the 1970s oil boom when foreign contractors set up housing facilities so their employees could live outside the rigours of Saudi Arabia's Islamic strictures.
They are now home to non-Saudi Muslims and even Saudis who want to live under more relaxed social rules.
Al-Hamra, with its recreation centre, swimming pools and large imposing walls and gates, had seemed secure.
But that was an illusion, the Berkels say: there were few guards, and they had no guns.
Mr Momen and his guests escaped injury and are now looking for somewhere else to live.
'I've only been at Al-Hamra for two months, but I don't think I'll be going back,' he said. -- Washington Post,New York Times.
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I truly hope you don't see me as some blood thirsty
animal, but it is completely clear that the transformation of war (or the
way they are executed) can hardly be done without some pressure on 'the
system involved'. And as some antidote to the above quotes of harsh and
bloody power I would like to quote from 6 May this year the next:
'Daddy daddy, we are
back! Daddy we are back!' (child runs from the garden into the
house)
'Daddy it was nice, daddy uh? (child stops suddenly on the
doormat)
'Daddy your eyes are red and your face is wet! Daddy are you
crying?' (child jumps from joy)
'But daddy are you crying? I didn't know you could cry too!'
(child stands firm in the 'cry too' conclusion)
'I did not know you could cry, why are you crying daddy?' (jumps
with enthusiasm again, just 'wants to know')
'Why daddy why?' (she just wants to know, she just doesn't take a
'no' for answer)
'It is just to complicated, you would not understand. Well it's
just I am glad you three are back.' (daddy makes some clumsy
movements and hugs the child and steps back)
'But why daddy, we are just back that's it.' (she looks happy and
feels identification with daddy, he can cry too)
Comment, again I am friendly in nature and being humble is
my way of living. But I can be ruthless if needed, do you now understand
what I mean with that saying a little bit? I hope you understand that. On
the other hand let it be known again that I am the man without body guards
and as long as I have some good health I always will be without body
guards.
This statement is not meant as some kind of challenge, it is only repeated
because this is the only way it works. I am the Transformer and I will
transform the 'old fashion way' of making war, and very may be in the mean
time some simple economical transformations are done too but that is not
my 'main task'.
We split, bye.
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