Dubai: When Na’er Al Buluwi was preparing to blow himself up at Islam’s second holiest site in Madinah on Monday, his own brother was protecting worshippers at Islam’s holiest site in Makkah, their father has revealed.
Fa’ez Al Buluwi, Na’er’s brother, is a security guard at the King Abdullah extension of the Grand Mosque in Makkah that is home to the Kaaba.
Saudi Arabia said the suicide bomber was a 26-year-old Saudi citizen with a history of drug abuse. Na’er crossed a parking lot next to the mosque and detonated an explosive belt, killing four soldiers, the state news agency SPA quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying.
Muslim Al Buluwi, Na’er’s father, told Saudi news site Al Sabq that he did not see any signs of radicalism in Na’er, who he said was very “mysterious” person, adding that he had previously worked in the Border Guards until he was expelled from the service. He said he last met him early in Ramadan in the city of Tabuk, where Na’er had allegedly found a job in a telecoms company.
Na’er’s mother last spoke to him on the 21st of Ramadan, but attempts to call him on the 25th failed as his phone was switched off. “When the [Madinah] attack took place, one of my sons informed her about it; she cursed those who conducted the operation and incited it [without knowing it was her son], and her views did not change after she found out,” Muslim recalled.
Na’er blew himself up outside the Prophet’s [PBUH] Mosque in Madinah on the 29th of Ramadan.
Na’er’s father said that he is not grieving for his son and wants nothing to do with him, adding that he is instead grieving for his victims.
On Monday, imams of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah and the Grand Mosque in Makkah, Islam’s two most sacred sites, urged a firm and tough approach to fighting the “forces of evil” that are seeking to wreak chaos and destruction and violate all the sanctities of Islam, undermine security and spread corruption.
In the Friday sermon, Shaikh Khalid Ali Al Gamdi, the imam and preacher of the Grand Mosque of Makkah said that terrorism is an outlandish phenomenon for Islam and in particular for Saudi Arabia, home to the two holiest mosques.
The greatest and most appalling of all sins, the scholar said, is for anyone to deliberately and premeditatedly shed the blood of innocent people... wreak chaos and havoc and undermine security and stability in order to achieve the evil goals of criminal gangs and sectarian terrorist organisations.
— With inputs from WAM
