Manama: Two brothers who died the same day have plunged the Al Harithi family in Saudi Arabia into grief while bringing into sharp contrast their choices in life; Nasser was killed during an anti-terrorism mission for his country, Zaher died in a suicide attack he carried out on behalf of the terror group Daesh.
London-based daily Al Hayat said that Nasser was a pilot with the Saudi-led coalition to restore the legitimate government in Yemen and that he died when his Apache helicopter went down. Another pilot, Ali Al Qarni, was also killed in the incident to the extreme south of the kingdom.
Zaher was a technician working for the health ministry and not a doctor as initially reported by some news outlets following the suicide attack on Thursday on a factory near Samarra, north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The bomber reportedly targeted a gathering of Iraqi soldiers.
Daesh sources said that Zaher had joined its ranks two years ago and that he registered himself as a suicide bomber.
The sources added that he had a wife, who too was a Daesh sympathiser and that she was pregnant, and that Zaher had refused to delay the suicide attack until the birth of his baby.
The wife of Nasser, the pilot, too was pregnant, their brother Dakheel told Al Hayat. The couple already had a daughter.
According to Dakheel, Zaher had a diploma in nursing and was appointed in Tabuk in the northern part of the kingdom. He married his cousin, but left her for one year before divorcing her. He then went away again and the family had no idea about his whereabouts for two years, Dakheel said.
