The truth about Islamic terrorists: their savagery is matched only by their stupidity
Starting with the suicide bomber who ran out of petrol on his way to an attack – as revealed in a riveting fly-on-the-wall documentary
Some jihadis are so useless they can barely fire a gun
LOCATED in the far east of Saudi Arabia, the Abqaiq refinery is the largest in the world and can produce nearly seven million barrels of oil per day. It is a vital part of the country’s infrastructure, processing half of Saudi’s oil exports.
Unsurprisingly, it makes an extremely tempting target for terrorists, and it was on February 24, 2006, that three vehicles driven by members of Al Qaeda were heading towards the refinery.
Their aim was to destroy the oil plant and strike a crippling blow to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as part of their self-declared ‘war against the Christians and Jews to stop their pillage of Muslim riches and part of the campaign to chase them out of the Arabian peninsula’.
The plan was simple. The first vehicle would break into the compound, its occupants shooting anyone who stood in their way.
once the compound was breached, the second and third cars would be used as ‘martyrdom vehicles’, their drivers ready to flip switches mounted between the front seats that would blow themselves — and the refinery — to pieces.
The terrorists were led by Fahd al-Juwayr, who had joined Al Qaeda the previous year after two of his relatives had been killed in 2004 by the police. Among his team was Abdullah al-Tuwayjiri, a young terrorist with a cheeky smile and not without charm.
Tuwayjiri was driving one of the ‘martyrdom vehicles’ and knew he had not long to live. As they approached Abqaiq, he decided to make an announcement over his walkie-talkie to the other vehicles.
‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ he asked. ‘Tell us,’ Juwayr replied. ‘I love you all.’ There was a slight pause until Juwayr said: ‘Ah … what a nice secret.’
Minutes later, Tuwayjiri came on the air again.
‘I’ve run out of petrol,’ he declared. ‘The light on the dashboard has come on.’
If his leader was annoyed at this rank amateurism, then his voice did not reveal it.
‘Is it really really empty,’ he asked, ‘or is there a tiny bit left?’
‘Well, the low-fuel light is on and the gauge is in the red.’ From his vehicle, Juwayr scanned the roadside and spotted a petrol station. He ordered Tuwayjiri to pull in and fill up.
‘right,’ acknowledged Tuwayjiri, and then, as an afterthought: ‘Have you got some money?’
‘You don’t have any with you?’ sighed an incredulous Juwayr, who started praying. There was little more he could say.
Such an episode of comic incompetence may seem like something out of the black comedy Four Lions, a film about inept suicide bombers, but it is all too real.
In fact, it was filmed by the terrorists themselves and was part of 200 hours of video footage that was later seized by the Saudis.
Along with another 300 hours filmed by the Saudi security forces, the footage has now been edited down to form a startling new film called Path of Blood.
Directed by BAFTA-winning film-maker Jonathan Hacker, and produced by Mark Boal — who won an oscar for his screenplay of The Hurt Locker (about an army bomb squad in Iraq) — the movie presents the most extraordinary insight into the private lives of Al Qaeda operatives as they waged their bloody and evil campaign in Saudi Arabia from 2003 to 2009.
With minimal voice-over, the terrorists are largely allowed to speak for themselves — and what they reveal is something quite different from the sinister masked face that these jihadis like to present to the public.
What we see are young men in their 20s and 30s, many of whom seem personable, and even likeable.
Like most men their age, they banter and josh, and play games on each other. Many are somewhat dim and naive; a few — often their leaders — appear more disciplined and humourless.
Some appear useless at carrying out a soldier’s basic exercises, such as rolling forwards and shooting, or leaning out the window of a slow-moving car and firing at a target.
We also see them larking about. There are wheelbarrow races in the desert, and games of football with improvised goalposts. Meals — some tasty, some miserable — are consumed, and prayers are offered. on one occasion, to much amusement, badly erected tents get washed out by a rare rainstorm, and there is a lot of clumsy posing with weaponry to look macho.
Unless you knew what these young men were up to, you might be forgiven they were simply on a lads’ get-together, or the Arab equivalent of a stag weekend.
In a word, superficially, they look normal.
And it is this normality — the banality of their evil, if you like — that makes the film so chilling.
‘It’s the contrast between their personalities and the terrible, evil things that they do that we really wanted to get across,’ says Jonathan Hacker. ‘We tend to think of terrorists as these twodimensional James Bond villains, with dark hair and big beards, whereas they’re really not like that; and I think that’s what makes them stay with you after watching the film.’
Although it would be tempting to suggest that by showing these young jihadis as outwardly normal human beings, the film glamorises them, the picture painted by the appalling videos does anything but.
one of the most telling scenes shows Abdulaziz alMudayhish, a 33-year-old aspirant suicide bomber, who is filmed being interviewed shortly before he is due to depart on a truck-bombing. It becomes swiftly apparent that he is very stupid.
At one point, the interviewer asks him: ‘Some say that targeting the Crusaders who occupy your lands is a sin within Islamic teachings — a sin against Muslims and their scholars. How do you respond?’
A gormless expression crosses Mudayhish’s face before he replies: ‘I don’t understand the question.’
The interviewer persists, patiently. ‘It is said that your bombing campaign is a sin against Islam and Muslims. What’s your response?’
Again, that same gormless expression, before the dimwitted reply: ‘I wasn’t briefed on this.’
‘No, you weren’t concentrating,’ says the voice, now irritable.
‘You’re right, I wasn’t,’ says Mudayhish, his tone that of a cheeky schoolboy who knows that he has done wrong but doesn’t care. ‘Don’t use such big words!’
This causes the other jihadis to start laughing, and soon the whole session descends into a farce.
The exchange raises an obvious and deeply troubling question. If someone such as this young man has no idea why he is about to sacrifice his life, why on earth is he doing it? The sad truth is that so many jihadis are simple souls, and have fallen under the influence of intelligent and charismatic leaders who are, essentially, using them as expendable weaponry.
‘It is tempting to think that many of them are victims of oppression or poverty,’ says Hacker. ‘But I think the answer is that they have a human need for simple answers, and to be told the meaning of life is “this”. All you need to do is “this” and you can go to heaven.
‘They therefore think their terrible crimes are all in a good cause.’
That naivety is, of course, no excuse for the utterly despicable atrocities that these ‘nice’ young men go out and commit.
Path of Blood certainly shows the gruesome results of their shootings and bombings. The broken bodies of children are extracted from rubble, and pieces of human flesh litter Saudi streets. There is blood everywhere — on pavements, in cars, even on ceilings. Dead bodies litter staircases in hotels, or sit at desks in offices.
The most disturbing footage shows the torture of Paul Marshall Johnson Jr, an American helicopter engineer who was kidnapped by Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia in 2004. We see his semi-naked body trussed up, and his face shrouded in a blindfold bound with masking tape.
Questions are repeatedly fired at him about his work fixing Apache helicopters for the Saudi military.
‘What kinds of projects in general? What is your work in Saudi Arabia? How much you take, your salary, by dollar? You are lying! Are you a manager or not?’
Mr Johnson is repeatedly struck, and then comes the most chilling sequence of all, in which he is gagged. He seems to know what is coming,
and starts to scream and struggle. Mercifully for the viewer, the screen goes blank, but then we hear the words: ‘Bring me his head. The knife. Move back! Move back!’
The rest of the soundtrack in this specific episode is extremely distressing, and when it ends, in the darkness comes the voice of a young boy, who says with pride: ‘That’s my Daddy’s knife.’
Pictures of Paul Johnson’s decapitated corpse are not shown in the film, but it can be seen on the internet. His killers placed his severed head on his back. The man responsible for this horrific murder was Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, who was the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Unlike his fellow jihadis, Muqrin never shows his face on any of the videos. Permanently hooded, he clearly has considerable military experience, and his body looks lean and fit.
It was Muqrin who masterminded the attack in Saudi Arabia that paralysed BBC correspondent Frank Gardner in 2004 and killed his cameraman, Simon Cumbers.
As well as the footage from Al Qaeda, Hacker and his team managed, after much negotiation, to obtain hundreds of hours of video from the Saudi security forces, which means that the film shows both sides of the story, and what happened to the likes of evil men like Muqrin.
‘It becomes like a cat-and-mouse thriller,’ says Hacker. ‘We see chases, we see the security forces closing in.’
Although none of the videos, with all their savagery, bring comfort, there is some closure to learn of 33-year-old Muqrin’s fate.
Cornered at a petrol station, he was shot while trying to escape from the Saudi security forces.
WHIle the film rightly never shows the faces of the dead victims of terrorism, it does not afford that decency to the terrorists themselves.
An examination of his body reveals that he would have had a slow death, his body peppered with bullets, all of which had missed his vital organs. His face is unmarked and looks peaceful.
The cameraman says a few appropriate words: ‘The dog. He messed up the whole world.’
And what of the attack on the Abqaiq refinery?
Shockingly, the film shows footage from the beginning of the assault by terror group leader Fahd al-Juwayr and his team. The shaky video shows a hand primed to open the interior handle of a car door, and the terrorists discussing their plans.
‘I’ll attack them and you stick with me,’ says one, presumably Juwayr, referring to the guards. ‘I’ll put a bullet in his head. Get out and I’ll put one in his head.’
The car door is opened and we hear the sounds of rapid gunfire. It is shocking to know that in those few seconds, two security guards lost their lives.
However, the attack was to be chaotic, and although the two martyrdom vehicles managed to enter the compound, they caused very little damage.
like all terrorists, Abdullah alTuwayjiri, the young man with the cheeky smile who was too boneheaded to check the petrol, died for nothing.
Path Of Blood is released on July 13. a book of the same name by thomas Small and Jonathan hacker is published by Simon & Schuster.