US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage flew into Riyadh to meet the country's leadership in the wake of Saturday's attack

mr-ed - im sure i read elsewhere that Armitage was there on a scheduled visit.

" they found Korans which were booby-trapped."

mred - the neo-cons are shameless

'It is quite clear to me that Al-Qaeda wants to take down the royal family and the government of Saudi Arabia,' US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Al-Arabiya television.

june03
"During the bust, Saudi authorities discovered, among other things, what one official described as "booby-trapped Korans," the Muslim holy book. That discovery, said the official, may have been a final straw of sorts for Saudi religious leaders, who denounced the plot for its double hypocrisy in allegedly plotting a terror attack in Mecca and in waging a holy war against infidels using Islam's holiest book. "


mr ed
btw - this latest bombing in saudi has the neocons fingyprintz all over it. their audacity is extraordinary.

booby-trapped korans indeed. the bigger issue of course is the strategy that it points to. the attack was not directed at westerners and it was during ramadan. armitage "im personally sure that this was alqaida and they wanna bring down the saudi royal family and the govt of saud"

see - its muslims on muslims - indiscrimate. u r all vulnerable. u need us.

the embassy was closed in advance - perhaps the US wants to show that its intel is getting better

according to the beeb "US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage flew into Riyadh to meet the country's leadership in the wake of Saturday's attack. " other reports say that it was a "previously scheduled visit"

its also fun to finally seeing the reports that 15 of the 19 911 hijackers were saudi. i wonder where that snippet has been for the last 2 years. its nice to see it back.

the interesting thing is those 28 pages in the 911 report that were blacked out - largely believed to be incriminating to the saudi involvement and perhaps the administration. there is a tiny bit of speculation that it mite be a redherring - a plant to arouse suspicions about the saudis. if that is true then karl rove is a certifiable genius. in fact, i may have even suggested to u 6 months ago that he must be einstein-level genius. and cajones to boot!

boobytrapped korans indeed. hats off to them for the idea tho! perfect imagery given the muslim-on-muslim objective of the message. im not exactly sure how that is actually implemented however - do they steal the guy's koran and hope he doesnt notice for a few days while they booby trap it? or do they leave them on the street and hope that someone walks past and says 'ooh - its my lucky day, heres a koran on the street - i needed one of those'

another cute part of the story is that the compound is 'near some of the palaces' - of which there are thousands - it'd be hard not to be near some of them.

the other cute part of the press release is the bit where they say 'maybe they were acting on old intelligence - westerners used to live in the compound'. alqaida can hijack 4 planes simultaneously and can shakeoff the fighterplanes, and hit 3 targets directly (which im led to believe is bloody hard) and yet they accidentally blow up a compound and forget to update their knowledge about who actually lives there.


please booby trap my bible

actually - if u take this one step further, the baghdad bombings of the UN and the Red Cross fit the same profile. "look at how indiscriminate these horrible people are - they attack those who are trying to help them."

in an even weirder universe, it mite even be conceivable that part of the idea is to actually kick the UN and IRC outta iraq.