Terrorism ruled out in Riyadh shooting

October 15, 2014

Jeddah, Oct 15: Police and US officials ruled out terrorism in the shooting of two US citizens in Riyadh on Tuesday, saying the gunman was a former co-worker of the victims who was fired by their employer for misconduct.

Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said the attacker has been identified as Abdul Aziz al-Rashed, a former employee of defense contractor Vinnell Arabia, which works with the Saudi National Guard.

Al-Turki said the gunman was a 25-year-old old Saudi born in the United States. He said there was nothing in the gunman’s record that shows any affiliation with any extreme movements.

Saudi and US officials earlier said the suspect opened fire on the car of the two Americans at a gas station near King Fahd Stadium in the eastern part of Riyadh on Tuesday afternoon. One of the victims died while the second one suffered slight injuries.

Responding police operatives cornered and arrested the suspect, Riyadh police spokesman Col. Fawaz Al-Maiman said.

A statement released by the Riyadh police also confirmed the death of one American and said another was “lightly injured” in the attack.

Johann Schmonsees, spokesman of the US Embassy in Riyadh, confirmed that the two shooting victims are employees from Vinnell Arabia.

“We are in close contact with the Saudi government as we continue to gather details about the shooting and motive,” he said.

He added: “Our embassy is issuing a security message to US citizens to advise them on the situation and any safety precautions they should take.”

He said the security advisory would be used to communicate information about personal security threats of a general or systemic nature, such as crime trends, demonstrations, peaceful actions intended to disrupt normal activity, or localized events not likely to affect large numbers of US citizens.

Police and US Embassy officials did not release the names of the shooting victims.

Vinnell Arabia, which is partly owned by US-based Northup Grumman Corp., has helped to train Saudi National Guard troops since 1975. It says it has more than 1,250 employees, some of whom are former US soldiers. More than half of the employees are Saudis, the company says on its website.

According to reports, Vinnell Arabia employees have been attacked in the Kingdom before, most notably the May 2003 truck bombing at its compound in Riyadh that killed 10 Americans and three Filipino workers.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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