Editorial: Beginning of the End

It is with grim satisfaction that we must hail the success of the Saudi security forces in killing Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin and his three henchmen after they had dumped the body of their victim, Paul Johnson in Riyadh. This has been a major blow to the fanatics who imagined that they could hold the Kingdom to ransom. However we must not for a moment imagine that the war against them is over.

Nevertheless this is a major breakthrough. Besides the four terrorists who died in the gunbattle with police, 12 other suspects were seized, along with a cache of arms, forged documents and three vehicles, one of which appears to have been used the murderous attack on the BBC team in Riyadh. The leads that the arrests will produce are likely to point to other members of the Al-Qaeda gang.

Equally important is the fact that this breakthrough comes at a time when international critics were questioning the ability of Saudi Arabia to tackle the terror threat here. The rolling up of this terrorist cell is a singular morale boost for the security forces and should do much to convince everyone living in the Kingdom that terror can and will be defeated. It is also a lesson for the killers themselves that as the government has promised, they will all be hunted down.

Al-Qaeda may claim that the authorities have not killed Al-Muqrin and his accomplices, but we have the photographic evidence to the contrary, which will no doubt be confirmed by further forensic tests. Their denial is simply further proof of the mad delusions under which they function.

Yet at this moment of triumph for the forces of law and order, we must mourn the death of the American hostage — Paul Johnson. Kidnapping is the most loathsome of crimes. It was a slow-motion murder which engages the emotions of all decent people. It was not just the helpless Johnson who was being held to ransom, but everyone in Saudi Arabia. It was always unthinkable that detained Al-Qaeda terrorists would be released as the thugs demanded. Therefore we all knew that from the minute the kidnappers issued their wicked ultimatum, Johnson was a dead man. The anguish of his friends and family was shared by us all.

It can only be a limited consolation to his bereaved family that the dumping of Johnson’s body led directly to the death of four of his abductors and the arrest of 12 others suspected of involvement in his imprisonment and murder.

It is the nature of terrorism that it will seek to recoil from this blow and prove that it has not been seriously wounded. The only way it can demonstrate this will be by further attacks. We must therefore redouble our efforts to look out for evidence of the terrorists’ activity in our midst.

We must hope that this major blow to Al-Qaeda, while not a final victory, is the beginning of the end of the struggle against this greatest of evils.