Saudis behind beheadings, conspiracy theories, and Saudi TV

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Saudis behind surge of beheadings

By Steven Stalinsky

In recent years, the act of beheading has become a popular trend among Islamist terrorists, who cite the Koran's Sura Muhammad, Verse 4, as its theological basis: "When you meet in battle those who have disbelieved, smite their necks; and after the slaughter fasten tight the bonds, until the war lays aside its burdens.Then either release them as a favor, or in return for ransom."

"Hitting the neck," or, in Arabic, "Darb Al-A'nak", literally speaking, is one of several words in Arabic for killing. It is not "murdering," since the word "murdering" carries a derogatory meaning. It is simply "killing." This word, which is taken from ancient Muslim vocabulary, preserves the actual manner in which beheadings have been carried out. Therefore, beheading is not seen as unusual or inhumane. It is an act of Islamic punishment under sharia, or, Islamic law.

The beheading of Daniel Pearl in February 2002, followed by the killings of Nicholas Berg, Paul Johnson Jr., and Kim Sun-Il, and the kidnappings and threats to behead a growing list of captives, have garnered major press attention for the terrorists as Arab satellite channels rush to air these acts.

The recent killings of Westerners have been condemned by the Saudi royal family. The Saudi Press Agency reported that the vice governor of the Riyadh region, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz, expressed condolences on behalf of King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, to the wife of Paul Johnson. Prince Sattam said that Johnson's beheading was a malicious crime that is rejected by Islam, declaring that "this has happened for the first time in the Kingdom."

However, the Saudi government has carried out beheadings as a form of execution for breaking an assortment of laws. Examples posted by the Saudi Press Agency include: In August 2003, a Sudanese and a Chadian were beheaded for smuggling drugs into Saudi Arabia. An Afghan was beheaded for peddling opium in September 2003. A Pakistani and an Iraqi were beheaded for smuggling heroin into the Kingdom in April of 2003. In October 2002, a Palestinian was beheaded for murdering his father after an argument. Two Pakistanis and an Indian were beheaded in the summer of 2002 for smuggling heroin into Saudi Arabia.

The London Arabic daily Al Hayat reported on May 3 that the punishment of beheading was about to be applied to the son of Prince Nayef Ibn Abd Al-Aziz, Saudi Arabia's interior minister, who murdered another Saudi citizen. In the end, he was pardoned by the victim's father. The life of the killer, Prince Fahd, was spared on May 1 when "[Fahd] was brought to the prison yard, his eyes blindfolded, and the executioner was prepared with his sword to sever his neck…In front of a large throng of citizens, Prince Fahd begged the father of the victim: 'Save my life'… Suddenly, the father of the victim kneeled twice in front of Prince Fahd, who was lying down in front of the executioner… [He] got up and to the cheers of the crowd pardoned Prince Fahd and untied his hands."

Earlier this year, an Al Qaeda member in Saudi Arabia warned of beheadings in his last will and testament. Hazem Al-Kashmiri, the son of a retired leading general of the Saudi internal security force, informed the world that Al Qaeda had "a message to the American soldiers…We promise that we will not let you live safely, and you will not see from us anything else, just bombs, fire, destroying homes, cutting your heads…"

The 18th issue of the Al Qaeda-identified journal Sawt Al-Jihad included an interview with Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, commander of the Al-Quds Brigade, which took responsibility for the May 29 attack at Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in which 22 people were killed. Al-Nashami detailed how Al Qaeda members cut the throats of non-Muslims, and in one case, beheaded one of their victims - all as "acts of devotion to Allah:" "We turned to the third site…found a Swedish infidel. Brother Nimr cut off his head, and put it at the gate [of the building] so that it would be seen by all those entering and exiting."

In what appeared to be a single case, the beheading of Daniel Pearl has now influenced other Islamists in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Even in London, the Web site of Islamist Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Masri features video of children pretending to behead other children. Islamic history includes periods in which beheadings against infidels were a common practice, and it seems that this cycle is about to repeat itself. Steven Stalinsky is Executive Director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org).

Making of A Mid-East Conspiracy: Nicholas Berg Was Not Beheaded

By Steven Stalinsky

Following the beheading of Nicholas Berg in May by terrorist Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the killing became the latest in a long line of conspiracy theories which have emerged from the Arab and Iranian media.

Ibrahim Al-Fayoumi, a member of Egypt's Al-Azhar Islamic university, stated on May 12th that the beheading of any person, dead or alive, is forbidden by Islamic law, but that he thought that the Berg case was "American propaganda to divert from the [Abu Ghureib] scandal."

An article titled "The Unexamined Life of Nicholas Berg," which appeared in the Saudi daily Arab News on May 21, questioned Nick Berg's presence in Iraq, alluding to his alleged connections to the Mossad as a "communication spy." The article also placed doubt on Al-Zarqawi's involvement in Berg's murder.

The Iranian daily Tehran Times of May 18th included an article which called the Berg beheading a fraud: "Not only were the purported screams of Nick Berg not in synchrony with the decapitation, but there was also a total lack of blood ... We forwarded the video to … a forensic expert… He wrote back … that in his opinion the video is a fraud…" The paper cited 'La Voz de Aztlan' as its source. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the L.A.-based paper is "the racist and antisemitic Web magazine of a tiny group of extremist Chicanos."

On May 20th, Dr. Sheik-Attar, an Iranian political commentator, appeared on Iranian channel Jaam-E-Jam 2 and blamed the CIA for murdering Berg, to overshadow the Abu Ghureib prison scandal. He explained that previous U.S. actions had created such a precedent: "A chance observation of The Bay of Pigs and Cuba affair [shows that] a senior CIA official told [CIA director] Allen Dulles, 'We can sacrifice seven or eight Americans there.' That was supposed to serve as pretext for attack, but Kennedy opposed it. This is not unprecedented. Absolutely, that is their method."

A May 15th story on Aljazeera.net discussed conspiracy theories in online Arab chat rooms regarding the Berg beheading, and the article "raised numerous questions concerning its authenticity." Questions involved: Why Nick Berg was wearing an orange jumpsuit, the timing of the executioner's announcement that Berg was to die for "Iraqi prisoner abuse," and Berg's Jewish background. Other questions included why "the body is completely motionless even as the knife is brought to bear …" The Arab bloggers write that the accent of the executioner is not Iraqi or Jordanian, and that Al-Zarqawi was believed to have been killed in March. One writer observes that his face is so well-known that "why would he bother to cover it?"

Fares.net, one of the first Arabic Internet sites, included on May 17 discussions on Berg's killing, concluding that the videotape was a fabrication. Translations of the Arab bloggers statements include: The bodies of the killers looked husky, unlike the thin and agile bodies of Iraqis; The hands of those people looked very white; Their motions looked like those of Westerners; In the videotape a Western voice was heard saying "thy will be done," which is an expression that even an Arab well versed in English would not use; and the chair on which Berg was sitting is the same kind that Lynddie England, who is accused of abuse in Abu Ghraib, was photographed sitting in, and is the same kind as chairs seen in that prison.

Other questions brought up by the Arab bloggers include: Was Berg used to carry out the bombings that Al-Zarqawi was accused of? Did the U.S. set the killing up to save Bush's standing in the upcoming elections? One person wrote "If you thought that the Americans could not possibly go that far … remember the black history of the CIA … and remember who killed the President of the U.S. John Kennedy?" Another wrote, "Since Berg visited several countries in the world, he could have been a Mossad agent, and the Mossad wanted to get rid of him..."

The site included side-by-side close-up pictures of Berg, one with a beard from the beheading videotape, and another one is a bespectacled picture of him released by his family. A line was drawn along his nose, which was supposedly straight in the family picture and crooked in the other one. The caption under the pictures says: notice the difference. The real Berg is on the left, not the one in prison garb.

Like many other conspiracy theories told in the Middle East, this one too will likely gain acceptance as time goes by.

Steven Stalinsky is Executive Director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org). Click here to comment on this column.

Must-see Saudi TV

By Steven Stalinsky June 28, 2004

The Saudi royal family has been on the forefront of espousing an extreme position of hatred toward Jews, influencing the kingdom's educational system, media, and mosques, as well as its foreign and domestic policy.

In its first attempt to attract tourists to the country, Saudi Arabia's tourist commission, under the control of Prince Sultan bin Abd Al-Aziz launched an official website in March 2004. The website listed those not allowed into the kingdom: "Israeli passport holders or those whose passport has an Israeli arrival/departure stamp; those who do not abide by the Saudi traditions concerning appearance and behavior; those under the influence [of alcohol]; and Jewish people."

The Saudi embassy's Washington, D.C. spokesman, Nail Al-Jubeir, said he was "stunned" when he saw the website; and the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan, said he was "embarrassed." According to a press release by the Saudi embassy, "the information on the website was not correct and as a consequence the erroneous material was removed."

The ambassador's father, Prince Sultan, who serves as secretary general of the tourism commission, said in a statement that the controversy was "blown out of all proportions" by U.S. media seeking to portray the kingdom as anti-Semitic. He added, "...It is all part of a smear campaign meant to tarnish Saudi Arabia's image."

Prince Sultan - who is also second deputy prime minister, defense and aviation minister, and inspector general of Saudi Arabia - has been making statements against Jews for years. Following a ceremony at the Saudi Public Institution for Military Industries in June 2002, when asked about U.S. criticism of Saudi Arabia, Prince Sultan replied to the Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, "It is enough to see a number of congressmen wearing Jewish yarmulkes to explain the allegations against us." More recently, the Saudi royal family website 'Ain-Al-Yaqeen, quoted Prince Sultan as saying that the U.S. media, which is "under the Jewish influence," is using the U.S. reform initiative to widen the gap between Arab countries and the U.S.

Saudi Minister of the Interior Prince Naif bin Abd Al-Aziz, Sultan's brother, has also made accusations against the Jews. In what has since become an infamous interview reported in Ain-Al-Yaqeen a year after 9/11, Naif explained that Arabs were not involved in the attacks: "We put big question marks and ask who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from them. Who benefited from events of 9/11? I think they [the Jews] are behind these events."

Saudi kings have also been known for holding extreme anti-Semitic views. Saudi Princess Fahda bint Saud ibn Abd Al-Aziz - who's been described as "the daughter of King Saud and the historian of her father's reign" and who appears occasionally in the Saudi media - has written that her father's views on the Jews and Israel still serve as inspiration for the Arab and Muslim world.

In one article, she explained that King Saud called the Jewish state a deadly disease that would never be accepted by Arabs. "...King Saud made the right diagnosis: 'The Zionist threat is like cancer - in dealing with it neither medicine nor surgery will do any good.' This royal statement was meant to emphasize that the Arabs do not, and will not, accept an Israeli state amidst them." The article added that under the leadership of King Saud, the Saudi Representative to the U.N. called for the establishment of a U.N. agency "to help resettle Jews [now in Israel] in their former European homes."

The late King Faisal was also notorious for his antisemitic statements. In 1972, he told the Egyptian magazine al-Musawwar, "While I was in Paris on a visit, the police discovered five murdered children. Their blood had been drained, and it turned out that some Jews had murdered them in order to take their blood and mix it with the bread they eat on that day." The following year, in an interview with the Lebanese Al-Sayyad Faisal said that in order to comprehend the crimes of Zionism it's necessary to understand the Jewish religious obligation to obtain non-Jewish blood.

The Saudi royal family's hatred of the Jews is now influencing its next generation. Saudi Prince Amr Muhammad Al-Faisal writes often in the Saudi press to warn American Jews that their compatriots will eventually turn against them. In one article he declared: "Dear cousins, if you hear a snap in two or three years, it will probably be the sound of the trap shutting on your collective necks. You have been warned."

Given that the Saudi royal family controls its country's media, mosques, and textbooks, there's no doubt they're responsible for the kingdom's reputation as a breeding ground for antisemitism.

Steven Stalinsky is Executive Director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org).

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