More Casualties

According to the Saudi government, the death toll from last night's suicide bombings in Riyadh is up to at least 29 people, including "one Australian, seven Saudis, seven Americans, two Jordanian children, two Filipinos, a Lebanese and a Swiss, in addition to the nine charred bodies believed to be the attackers." About 194 were injured, including over 40 Americans.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is offering an even higher estimate of at least 90 people killed.

Update: American officials are now backing off the bigger casualty count.

Comments

[Anonymous]

like, for example, spontaneous jizsmation -- masturbation by thought alone.

[Michael Wagner]

Will the bodies of the Arab victims be paraded in the street through throngs of angry people demanding revenge?

[Neb Okla]

I'm no security expert, but it seems that somebody put "all our eggs in one basket" so to speak.

From a terrorist standpoint, that sure seems like a juicy target if your goal is to frighten foreigners.

[Sandy]

I'm no Saudi expert, but I believe in several cases these compounds have been demanded by the Saudis (or more appropriately by the Wahabist religious police) so that the populace does not have to endure seeing women unveiled, people drinking alcohol, or generally behaving in any way that might lead to dancing.

As the Islamic apologist who was brought in for our Near Eastern History class said, "Islam is very tolerant of other religions. They just have to pay an extra tax, live in certain places, and can't take part in the government." Oooh, where can I sign up?

[B.Hastings]

Will the bodies of the oh, so silent French now please stand up and be counted?

[SM]

Sandy,

Who is this islamic expert ?
Sounds very much like something John Espositio/ Karen Armstrong would say.

[Croesus]

Sandy,

Sounds like 16th century England under Elizabeth I. 🙂

[JJ]

He was probably talking about medieval Islam--which really *was* more tolerant, with those conditions, than medieval Christian Europe.

[Croesus]

JJ,

That really depends on where you were. And even at that, in one of the more tolerant places (who the hell wants to be tolerated, BTW?) in the medieval Muslim world, Spain, you still had the occassional pillaging of Jewis neighborhoods, etc.

When Washington spoke of "religious toleration," he said that in fact what people should be doing respecting the religions of others. Toleration, after all, has the undertone of paternalism, and of it can change quickly to its opposite because tolerate means to, well, hold back one's hand, rather than to acknowledge that one's hand shouldn't be involved in the first place.

[Sandy]

The Islamic expert was some grad student/postdoc doing time in a 100-level class. He was, unfortunately, not simply referring to medieval Islam, but to current Islam--though it's hard to imagine where he was thinking of.

[Hastings]

When they (silently) gave them visas, passports, and other assorted means of stealth with which to help them escape the Coalition's onslaught -- scattering them (or their accomplices) throughout the rest of the world.

"Silently", because we only discovered this surreptitiousness several weeks later.

[Croesus]

B. Hastings,

When exactly were the French silent about Al Qaeda?

[Olsen Lev]

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DATE: 02/28/2004 12:18:43
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