From obscurity to 'martyrdom'

By PAUL LASHMAR

Until last November, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin was just another obscure Saudi mujahed who had fought in a number of foreign conflicts. Today he is a martyr, a symbol of anti-American defiance to Saudi's burgeoning Islamic radical opposition.

By the time of his death on Saturday in a gunfight with Saudi security forces he had already achieved legendary status among sympathisers of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Just hours before his death Muqrin had beheaded the American hostage Paul Johnson in cold blood. As was Muqrin's trademark, a video of the beheading was on the internet within hours.

It was the latest in a series of bloody attacks on foreigners by Muqrin's terrorist network that won him fame among Islamist militants and notoriety elsewhere. Saudi officials believe he orchestrated attacks in the past eight months that killed 40 Westerners as well as many Saudis and came close to destabilising the Saudi Government.

The death of Muqrin and two other radical leaders will be seen as a major coup for Saudi security, which has been criticised for its lack of zeal in tracking down the terrorists who are causing Westerners to flee the country in their hundreds.

Muqrin's rise began in November, when a small cell loyal to him carried out a suicide bombing at a residential compound in Riyadh that housed mostly Westerners, killing 17 and injuring 122. The attack placed him top of the Saudi Government's wanted list of 26 terrorist leaders.

Muqrin knew how to chill the blood of every Westerner living in the kingdom. Three days after Paul Johnson's kidnapping, an internet video showed a man wearing a black hood and gripping an AK-47 as he threatened to execute the American hostage. Despite his disguise, the subtitle named the speaker as Abdulaziz al-Muqrin.

A graduate of jihadi training camps in Afghanistan, and reputed to be a veteran of conflicts in Somalia and Bosnia, Muqrin allegedly also pursued his radical cause in Algeria. There he was part of a group known for dismembering the bodies of its enemies on videotape.

A handsome man in his early 30s, Muqrin left school at 17 and spent about four years in Afghanistan, then took his terrorist skills to Africa and Europe.

He was arrested in Ethiopia in 1998 for belonging to an Islamic rebel group, and extradited to Saudi Arabia, where he was sentenced to four years' jail, but served only two.

In early 2001, Muqrin returned to Afghanistan. He joined the Taleban in fighting US forces there, then returned to Saudi Arabia a year later. It was then, Saudi security officials say, that he began setting up his own local network of radicals.

He was one of a new generation of al Qaeda leaders who emerged to fill the gaps left by those captured or killed in operations after September 11.

Muqrin's great talent was for graphic violence against Westerners. He was also adept at using the internet to gain public attention.

After killing 22 people in Khobar at the end of May, Muqrin's people posted graphic details of the attack on the internet, describing how the killers slept and prayed after decapitating Westerners.

Muqrin's influence spread much further than Saudi Arabia. In April he ordered the killing of Muslim leaders co-operating with intelligence services and the police to thwart terrorist attacks.

In an interview this month with Jane's Intelligence Review, Prince Turki al-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence and now the country's ambassador to the UK, said only one al Qaeda cell remained operational in Saudi Arabia.

"Even now, it's in the process of being dismantled."

But how long before new cells emerge to wreak more violence on foreigners and Saudis alike?

- INDEPENDENT