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Bomb survivor tells how he was used by al Qaeda

Arab News:

Ahmad ibn Abdullah Al-Shayie, a 21-year-old Saudi who escaped a bomb explosion in Baghdad on Dec. 25, 2004, has returned to the Kingdom to tell the story of how Al-Qaeda militants helped him enter Iraq and later used him to carry out a terrorist operation.

Ahmad expressed regret for killing 12 innocent Iraqis, including seven members of the same family in the operation, adding that Al-Qaeda arranged the bombing in Baghdad’s Al-Mansour neighborhood without his knowledge. The young man was luckily ejected from the tanker by the force of the blast, Al-Watan Arabic daily said.

Ahmad who sustained severe burns all over his body was arrested by Iraqi police who later handed him over to Saudi authorities. He told how Al-Qaeda was recruiting young Arabs to fight alongside insurgents in Iraq, adding that he had entered Iraq through Syria with the help of smugglers.

Ahmad said he had gone to Iraq out of a conviction that he should do something to help his Iraqi brothers though he had not consulted scholars about his plans and in fact ignored the advice of his parents and family. He said he was taken to an Al-Qaeda cell in Doura district in the south of Iraq where he was trained to drive an oil tanker.

On the day of explosion, he was told to take the tanker to the Al-Mansour neighborhood. “They asked me to stop the tanker near a concrete barrier, saying someone would come to receive the tanker from me. But no sooner had I stopped the tanker than it exploded,” he said.

The Saudi's have put the man on TV from his hospital room to let people know the truth about al Qaeda.