January 22, 2003

Serial Killer News Create Panic Among Indian School Students in Saudi Arabia?

DAMMAM, 22 January 2003 —A hot crime news is circulating among residents through the Internet, indicating that a new serial killer is active, probably targetting Indian School Students in Saudi Arabia. "Dammam and Alkhobar have been buzzing for the past two days with talk that a man wearing a black abaya and wearing black gloves was on the prowl in the Doha, Sulatnia and Dana districts during the early morning hours," said reports from Saudi Arabia. It may be recalled that a serial killer targeted many young students in an Yemen University. A Sudanese morgue worker Mohammed Adam Omar was accused of killing an mangling corpses as well as raping 16 women at a Yemeni university. He had confessed two years ago that he committed similar killing crimes in Sudan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Chad. The Sudanese employee had converted the faculty of medicine , Sanaa University to a slaughter house for women during five years.

According to reports from Saudi Arabia, a member of the managing committee at the International Indian School sent a photocopy of one of the e-mail messages about the rumor to the school, advising the school authorities to inform the students and teachers. There are more than 9,000 pupils from 4,500 families studying at the Indian school, and once the news was circulated the rumor spread like a wild fire. There are various versions of the story. In one, the killer was using knife against his victims. In another, he was using a revolver with a silencer. Some reports said the so-called serial killer was an escapee from the mental asylum in Taif.

The Saudi authorities have denied the existence of a serial killer in the Eastern Province, saying that all such reports are nothing but rumors. They also appealed to residents to refrain from engaging in such empty talk. The Egyptian Internet police recently caught Andy Ibrahim Shoukri, a 19-year-old student, spreading warnings via e-mail about a serial killer in Cairo. Police said the rumors were false. Shoukri was sentenced to a month in prison by an Emergency State Security court in April for spreading false information. (keralamonitor.com)

One More American Soldier Killed in Kuwait

A hail of automatic rifle fire killed an American working for the US military and critically wounded another in an ambush on their car on Tuesday near a US base in Kuwait where Washington is preparing for a possible war on Iraq. The United States embassy condemned the incident as a terrorist attack. It was the third time since October that Americans have been killed or injured in attacks in Kuwait. The men were ambushed at around 9:15 a.m. (0615 GMT) while driving on a highway north of Kuwait City near Camp Doha, the main US army base in Kuwait. The US embassy said they were contractors with a firm working for the US Defense Department. Kuwaiti police said one or more attackers had opened fire from trees and bushes at the side of the road before escaping. Cartridge cases believed to be from rounds fired from a Kalashnikov rifle or rifles were found at the scene. Reuters journalists at the scene said the dead man?s body was removed from a tan-colored four-wheel-drive vehicle about two hours after the attack. Dozens of police sealed off roads in the area, and Kuwait's interior minister visited the scene.

One side of the vehicle was riddled with more than 20 bullets, and the windscreen was also fractured. Some of the side windows had been shot out completely. A pool of blood was visible on the road, until police covered it with sand. The wounded man was undergoing surgery Tuesday afternoon at Kuwait City?s Al-Razi hospital. A hospital staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity said the injuries were serious but not life-threatening. He said all of the injuries were to the right side of the body, including fractures in his arm and thigh. He also has two bullets in the chest - one near the surface and the other deeper. A heart surgeon was called to participate in the surgery, he said. "We condemn this terrorist incident which has tragically cost the life of an innocent American citizen," the US ambassador to Kuwait, Richard Jones, said in a statement. "We have full confidence that the Kuwaiti authorities will pursue their investigation of the incident vigorously and professionally." The embassy said the injured man had been shot in the shoulder and thigh and was in hospital in Kuwait City.(keralamonitor.com)