In a column titled "Women, Children, and Terrorism" in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, columnist Badriyya Al-Bishr describes the terrorists contemptuous treatment of their wives and children.
For a graphic view of a terrorist's family life, see MEMRI TV clip No. 524, which shows home video footage of a Saudi terrorist allowing his young children to play with his weapons and his baby uses the barrel of a gun as a teething toy. [1]
The following are excerpts from the column: [2]
The Terrorists Have Sworn an Oath to Die and Take No Interest in Their Wives and Children
"The most amazing thing about the terrorists' hunt and killing, to which we have become accustomed, is that alongside the terrorists live women who act as spouses and maintain family life, giving birth to children under conditions of murder, terrorism, and hunts...
"The terrorists, who have sworn an oath to die… see fit to meet the need to have a family, and they live their lives – which are based on hunts and hiding – in the framework of an extended family of wives and children, without taking any interest in the health, nutrition, and other needs of these wives and children.
"The wife of [the terrorist] Abd Al-Karim Al-Mujati was apprehended at an eye doctor's [clinic], because they thought that her husband was accompanying her. But they found only her and her eldest son. This couple and their children entered [ Saudi Arabia ] with forged Qatari passports. According to statements by [Al-Mujati's] wife, she urged him to fulfill the right of polygamy that Islam makes possible…, and he married another [woman].
"The wife of [the terrorist] Al-Hiyari bore him a daughter in addition to the daughter he brought from Bosnia. [When she gave birth,] one of Al-Hiyari's Saudi friends had to [register] her at the hospital under his own name, [so that] Al-Hiyari's daughter was registered under the name of the friend [as the father].
"In Morocco, two other Saudi terrorists married two Moroccan women in socially acceptable marriages [i.e. marriages lacking an official contract, or Zawaj 'Urfi], and it was only after they were caught that they demanded that the judge legally register their marriages…
"In Syria, a terrorist was caught with the wife of his brother, who had escaped."
Wives and Children Are Part of the Terror Society, But it is Not Clear Whether They are Criminals or Victims
"Wives and children are part of the terror society, yet they are not members of it, and did not choose it. They came to it via marriage and family. They did not adopt its ideas, but they defend them. They did not take part in its crimes, but they find themselves in the hands of the police when the hunts end, without a clear ruling as to whether they are criminals or victims.
Terrorist Abd Al-Karim Al-Mujati Exploded His Own Son's Head as His Son Surrendered
"[One example of the terrorists' treatment of their families is] the bitter end of the son of one of the terrorists in clashes [between terrorists and Saudi security forces] in the city of Al-Qassim [in Saudi Arabia ]. The clashes led to the killing of Abd Al-Karim Al-Mujati, and to [Al-Mujati] himself exploding his own son's head as his son raised his hands in surrender.
"The terrorists treat their wives and children as personal property, and as objects with no right to choose [their own way of life], and no right to live in dignity and security.
"The terrorists' insistence on maintaining a family life of marrying and having children reflects the flaw that has taken root in their psychology with regard to their understanding of life, and in their view of the individual and his rights. Moreover, it reflects the class system in which they live, and according to which everything except themselves can be sold, abducted, and traded.
"Future literary works may reveal to us the inhuman and irreligious deeds that they are carrying out, as has happened with the confessions of people who quit the terrorist groups in Egypt. One of them acknowledged that the leaders of [the Egyptian terrorist group] Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya, to which he had belonged, [forcibly] divorced him from his wife after he left them, and a week later, she was married to the head of the group, [even] without the obligatory interval before a new marriage..."
Endnotes:
[1] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 524 - "Special Coverage of the Saudi Counter-Terrorism Conference and Jihad: Saudi Terrorist Plays With His Children," http://memritv.org/clip/en/524.htm, February 5, 2005.
[2] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), July 6, 2005.
