Qataris gather outside the damaged Doha theater before a rally on Monday. (AFP)

DOHA, 22 March 2005 — Qataris and expatriates held a massive rally yesterday at the site of a devastating bombing on Saturday which killed a Briton and injured a dozen as it emerged that the Egyptian suicide bomber was employed at state-run Qatar Petroleum (QP).

As a probe continued into the explosion that rocked a British theater linked to the Doha English Speaking School, a team of French experts arrived in Doha to help in the investigation.

Many Western, Asian and Arab residents carrying Qatari flags were among some 3,000 people who gathered amid tight security at the site of the blast to denounce the attack.

Sons of Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, government ministers, clerics and other prominent figures joined the rally.

“No to terrorism,” “Progress and security, whether the cowards like it or not,” read some of the banners raised by the demonstrators.

Authorities have said the attack was carried out by an Egyptian resident, Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali, who blew up his own booby-trapped car.

A QP official said the firm, which runs Qatar’s rich energy sector, was boosting security but had no fear of sabotage after the car bombing.

QP sources said it was business as usual at oil and gas installations. Qatar pumps 800,000 barrels of oil a day and is among the world’s top natural gas suppliers.

Qatar identified Ali as the attacker who rammed an explosives-laden car into the theater popular with Westerners.

Ali had worked in the company’s information technology department since 1990, his colleagues said.

“Nobody expected this from him. He was a decent man and just had a baby a month ago,” one colleague said. “He was not a loner, but he was not the most sociable person.”

So far, only a shadowy group calling itself “Jund Al-Sham Organization,” (or Organization of Soldiers of the Levant), has claimed responsibility for the attack, in a statement on an Islamist website whose authenticity could not be verified.

The strike has caused anxiety in an emirate that was previously seen as a peaceful place and now plays host to thousands of foreign residents and growing number of tourists.

“I am angry and shocked, because we have been used to coexistence among people from various parts of the world here in Qatar... What happened is against Islam,” said Hammad Saleh, a 52-year-old Qatari.

Some analysts here have linked the attack, similar to those carried out by the Al-Qaeda terror network in Western and Arab countries, to Doha’s pro-American policies.

Attorney Najib Mohammad Al-Nuaimi, a former Qatari justice minister, said “the presence of American bases in Qatar, the anniversary of the war on Iraq and the visit of Israeli Deputy Education Minister Michael Melchior to the Gulf state in February “are reasons enough to justify the incident”.

But newspapers said the attack would not sway Qatar, which is spending billions of dollars on gas projects and other plans to boost its economic status in the Gulf region.

The bombing came two days after an audiotape attributed to Al-Qaeda’s Saudi chief, Saleh Al-Oufi, and posted on an Islamist website called on the “brethren” in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and other countries neighboring Iraq to strike “crusader” targets on their territory.

International school Doha College said it would not reopen until after Easter break. The American school was still closed.

“People are still shaken because this is the first time this (has) happened in Qatar,” an American school official said.

Tanya, a 38-year-old American, said she feared more attacks: “I’m scared that this might happen more, who’s to say it won’t?

The majority of Qatar’s 840,000 population are expatriates, but few Westerners said they would leave their well paid jobs.