The Religious Policeman

The saga goes on. Three (or four) terrorists holed up north of Riyadh. They were surrounded, then completely surrounded. They were invited to repent. Still they are there. I lose track. This must be getting for two weeks.

Anyway, the latest article clarifies one thing.

INDIAN GIVES VITAL CLUES ON MILITANTS ON THE RUN

AN Indian worker who escaped from the clutches of three terrorists hiding out in the desert area near Riyadh, provided the security forces with vital information regarding the terrorists and their hideouts, according to the Arabic daily Al-Okaz.

The Indian national, a man in his forties, was abducted at gunpoint by the three terrorists, two of whom are on the terrorist wanted list, and used his car to escape after killing a man from the Al-Mujahideen forces in Al-Ayyina on the 14th of April.

He said the three terrorists made him carry their gear such as ammunition and grenades on his shoulders, and used harsh and rocky paths connecting a number of mountains between Al-Ammariyya and Al-Ayyina.

That's the clincher. They must be Saudis. How do I know?

1) They used a Third World National to do all their physical labour.

2) They haven't paid him yet.

(Perhaps I should explain. We man our factories with Third World Nationals. And when we have a bit of a cash-flow issue, we stop paying them. Sometimes for months. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. Funds running out, but they can't afford to go home, and if they did would lose the remote chance of back-pay. But that's another story.)

However, I would really welcome another explanation. How is it that, after two weeks, three or four (yes, single digit, not hundreds or thousands) terrorists, who have now been pinpointed by an Indian gentleman to a precise location within an area a few kilometers square, have still not been captured? This is not some huge area on the Afghan frontier. This is an area where we go for picnics on Fridays, where the Bedu drive around in their Toyota trucks with goats in the back. The police are obviously reluctant to take their nice shiny cars in there. But we have a whole Saudi Arabia army, and it's not doing anything else at the moment. Then we have the National Guard, that's even bigger, and better equipped. They have tanks, and Armoured Personnel Carriers, and helicopters. Why are they not being deployed there? Everyone I talk to believes that it's some big squabble going on at the top, all playing for different teams, nobody able (or willing) to do anything. If it lasts any longer, I'm going to have to send in my old Grandmother with her walking stick, she'll sort them out. Until then, it's the worst Saudi joke I've heard for years.