[Excerpt: The suicide bombing sent jitters through the expatriate community, prompting some Western schools to shut their doors. But economists said they saw no lasting damage to Qatar's 8 percent real economic growth forecast for 2005.....Around 5,000 Britons live in the country, where more than half the 840,000 population are expatriates, including a large American presence.]
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20490662.htm Qatar looks for Qaeda link in theatre suicide bomb 20 Mar 2005 19:11:40 GMT Source: Reuters (Adds economic forecast, Westerner comment paragraphs 14,17) By Odai Sirri DOHA, March 20 (Reuters) - Investigators hunted for clues on Sunday to any possible al Qaeda involvement in the suicide bomb attack by an Egyptian on a Qatar theatre that killed a Briton, the first such attack in the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state. The Egyptian man rammed a car packed with explosives into the one-storey theatre near a British school in the capital, Doha, officials and witnesses said. The attack was carried out on the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war but there was no indication of any link. Oil-producing Qatar was the command centre of the U.S.-led forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the sprawling As Saliya base on the outskirts of Doha houses 2,000 U.S. troops. Until Saturday the country had been spared militant violence, despite vows by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda to expel "infidels" from the region and topple U.S.-allied rulers. An Interior Ministry statement on state media identified the suicide attacker as Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali, who also owned the vehicle. Egypt's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. A Qatari Interior Ministry official earlier said the blast had injured 16 people, mostly Arabs and Asians. The British Foreign Office identified the dead Briton as Jonathan Adams but declined to give further details. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred two days after the suspected leader of al Qaeda's wing in Saudi Arabia urged militants in Qatar and other Gulf Arab states to wage holy war against "crusaders" in the region. Brigadier General Ahmad al-Hayki said in televised comments that the Interior Ministry was investigating any al Qaeda link. A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said "It is too early to characterise the bombing or to draw any kind of links or connections." ATTACK SHOCKS QATARIS, EXPATS Qatar -- a peninsula jutting into the Gulf -- prides itself on its security and has not experienced suicide bombings before. "It was a very big shock," said another Western diplomat, who declined to be named. "Everyone is now really worried and hopes that Qatar doesn't become part of this bloody cycle." Qatar Petroleum increased security for staff but it was business as usual at oil and gas sites, sources said. Qatar pumps 800,000 barrels of oil a day and is a top natural gas supplier. The suicide bombing sent jitters through the expatriate community, prompting some Western schools to shut their doors. But economists said they saw no lasting damage to Qatar's 8 percent real economic growth forecast for 2005. Around 5,000 Britons live in the country, where more than half the 840,000 population are expatriates, including a large American presence. The American School of Doha said it would be open on Monday. Doha College did not say when it would reopen. "I'll still take my daughter back there when it (the school) reopens," said Rebecca, a 44-year-old British mother whose daughter studies at the British school. Police sealed off the area round the Doha Players theatre, where about 100 people were watching Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at the time of the explosion. The blast shattered windows of cars and buildings, including at the British school where on-campus staff were evacuated. "At first we thought the blast was part of the play but when we realised it was a bomb we ran out," a British woman who had been watching the play told Reuters at a nearby hospital. BE VIGILANT "So many of us go to that theatre every week. It makes me nervous but I still feel safe overall because I've lived in this region for many, many years," said an American professor at a Qatar university campus who asked not to be named. Washington advised its citizens last week to be vigilant for possible militant attacks in the Middle East and North Africa. Anti-U.S. sentiment in the region is strong because of the Iraq war and perceived U.S. support for Israel against the Palestinians. French President Jacques Chirac expressed outrage at the attack and said France had sent explosives and criminal investigation experts to Doha at Qatar's request. (Additional reporting by Heba Kandil in Dubai) enditem ------------------------ Yahoo! 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