(USA Today) Steven Komarow and Sabah al-Anbaki - Ahmed Abdullah al-Shaya, 18, left Saudi Arabia for Syria in October and was smuggled over the border into Iraq. He spent weeks in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi with like-minded Muslims from Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Macedonia, where he was recruited to drive a car rigged with explosives to Baghdad and blow it up. But on Dec. 24, he was given the job of driving a butane-gas delivery truck that was rigged with bombs. It wasn't supposed to be a suicide mission, "but they blew me up in the truck" near the Jordanian Embassy. Nine people were killed, including a family of seven whose house collapsed on them, but Shaya survived, though badly burned. Shaya says he regretted his mission now and can no longer support bin Laden because "he is killing Muslims." "I want revenge for what they have done to me," he says about the Zarqawi network that sent him on the mission that left him permanently disfigured.
2005-01-25 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive