Intended Targets, Motivation and Attribution For The Attack
Kidnappers asked the hostages if they were Christian or Muslim, letting the Muslims go, and slitting the throats of non-Muslims.
A previously unheard-of militant group calling itself "The Jerusalem Squadron" -- a local Saudi Arabia-based faction of al-Qaeda -- claimed responsibility and said it was attacking "Zionists and Crusaders" who are in Saudi Arabia to "steal our oil and resources". An audio tape was released in which Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, thought to be one of al-Qaeda's leaders in Saudi Arabia, took responsibility. On the tape he said "among the killed was a Japanese who was slaughtered because USA have mixed his tribe into the war against Muslims."
According to the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the goal of the terrorists was to shake Saudi Arabia's stability and economy.
Read more about this topic: 2004 Khobar Massacre
Famous quotes containing the words intended, motivation, attribution and/or attack:
“The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended likewise to be the cause, and to be dictated by the liquor of which it so effectually promotes the use; for surely it never before was conceived by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Self-determination has to mean that the leader is your individual gut, and heart, and mind or we’re talking about power, again, and its rather well-known impurities. Who is really going to care whether you live or die and who is going to know the most intimate motivation for your laughter and your tears is the only person to be trusted to speak for you and to decide what you will or will not do.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
“Hence that general is skilful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skilful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.”
—Sun Tzu (6th–5th century B.C.)