Deadly suicide bombing near British school stuns Qatar
DOHA (AFP) - A shocked Qatar probed how an Egyptian suicide bomber killed a Briton and wounded 12 people near a British school in the capital Doha, amid fears the gas-rich state has become the latest target for militant attacks.
Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali detonated his booby-trapped car late Saturday outside a theater linked to the Doha English-Speaking School, the interior ministry said Sunday.
The blast, which went off while dozens of people were watching a play in the theater, sparked a blaze that partially destroyed the building and set several nearby cars on fire.
It was the first time Qatar, home to the US Central Command and the operational base for the US-led war on Iraq (news - web sites) in 2003, has been the site of such an attack against a Western target.
Ali's wife, who gave her name as Umm Abdullah, described him as a devout Muslim and a man of integrity. Ali, 38, worked as a computer programmer at Qatar Petroleum and had been living in Doha since 1990, she told AFP.
The car he owned and which was used in the attack was a black Land Cruiser. "I am shocked," the mother of three said.
Saturday's blast, exactly two years after the launch of the US invasion of Iraq, came as neighboring Saudi Arabia continues to battle a wave of terror blamed on Al-Qaeda sympathizers which has left over 220 people dead since May 2003.
Kuwait, another US ally in the Gulf, has been rocked by gunbattles involving Islamist militants believed linked to counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
A British embassy spokesman in Doha told AFP that the British victim was Jonathon Adams. He did not wish to give further details.
The Foreign Office in London confirmed that the dead man was a British national. Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Ahmad al-Hayki said the 12 wounded included one British citizen while the rest were Qataris, Arabs and Asians.
A British embassy source told AFP the mission had closed the two British schools in the Qatari capital for an unspecified period and advised British citizens here to observe caution.
Western embassies were planning to get together to discuss "appropriate" security measures to take for the citizens and firms of their respective countries.
Hotels in Doha stepped up security as the site of the blast remained nearly deserted on Sunday, with one police vehicle parked outside the school and special forces deployed in the area.
A Palestinian resident living near the site told AFP that police entered homes overnight to collect shrapnel from the explosion and other evidence. He said the blast was so powerful it shattered all windows in his home.
The blast occurred in an area where the US embassy used to be located before the mission moved to new premises.
Concerns that violence was spreading in the oil-rich Gulf region grew earlier this year following a series of deadly gunbattles in Kuwait between security forces and presumed Islamist militants in January.
Kuwait has said the men belong to a group linked to Al-Qaeda and other militant groups in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and which was plotting attacks against US troops and Western civilians in the emirate.
Audiotapes and messages attributed to Saudi-born Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and other figures from the terror network have called for attacks against Western targets and oil installations in the region. The latest came on Thursday, when a recording attributed to Al-Qaeda's Saudi chief, Saleh al-Oufi, and posted on an Islamist website called on the "brethren" in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other countries neighboring Iraq to strike "crusader" targets on their territory. The UAE was the first country to condemn the attack. Abu Dhabi "denounces this criminal act which targeted the security and stability of sisterly Qatar," Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al-Nahayan was quoted in Sunday's Emirati papers as saying. The official QNA news agency said emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani had received telephone calls from the king of Bahrain and the prime minister of Kuwait, in addition to the UAE president, in which they all condemned the attack. In February 2004, former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed in a car bomb blast in Doha, where he had been living in exile for three years. Two Russian intelligence agents were convicted here of killing the Chechen rebel leader but were later transferred to Russia. In November 2001, a Qatari man opened fire at a US air base near Doha, but he was shot dead by a military guard and no other casualties were reported in the attack.
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