On the riots in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, Local, 4/25/2000

The Saudi Ministry of the Interior on Monday said that one member of the Saudi security men was killed and other four wounded during acts of violence which erupted on Sunday in the southwestern part of the country.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted an official at the Ministry of the Interior as saying that the incidents took place in Najran city after one of the illegal residents in the city was arrested for practicing witchcraft.

The Saudi official said that when the security men started to carry out their duty to arrest the man and inspect his house, according to enforced rules to this effect, one of the witch's companions opened fire on the security men and one of them was seriously wounded, but in spite of all these the security men arrested the witch.

He added that later several persons gathered at the resident of the prince of the Najran district. One of the gathered persons opened fire on the house of the prince of Najran and cars were burned. As a result one security man was killed and another three wounded.

The Saudi official continued, "However, the security men arrested the witch."

Meanwhile, AFP said in news from Dubai that eyewitnesses stated that hundreds of Saudis who belong to the Ismaeli sect minority demonstrated on Sunday evening in a city situated in the southwestern part of the kingdom after one of their mosques was closed off.

Those eyewitness in the city of Najran said that several hundred Saudis, members of the Ismaeli sect, demonstrated in the cities of the city in protest against the breaking in of the specialized religious commission in the city to one mosque and confiscating religious books belonging to this sect and ordering the closure of their mosque.

One of the eyewitness stated that the demonstration ended after some 25 persons representing members of the Ismaeli community headed for the Holiday Inn hotel in the city's downtown and met with the city's prince, Mashaal Bin Saud Bin Abdul Aziz, handed him a note of protest over what it had taken place and demanded investigations for those who did them harm.

The eyewitnesses stressed that the demonstrators had not confronted the police and none of them was harmed, and the eyewitnesses added that the policemen were deployed intensively around the Holiday Inn and the main crossroads in the city.

However, it is only the Sunni community which is permitted in Saudi Arabia. This sect complies to the Wahhabi sect.

The Ismaelis are a branch of the Shiite sect, but is in contradiction to the main Shiite trend as it only admits seven Imams instead of 12. The name of the Ismaelis goes back to the 7th Imam Ismael, which is not recognized by the main sect of the Shiites, which is the main Islamic sect in Iran.

The Ismaelis are spread in some 25 countries, especially in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, central Asia and the Middle East. No official statistics exist about their number in Saudi Arabia. According to certain diplomats their number in Saudi Arabia reached tens of thousands, most of them living in the mountainous areas to the southwest of the kingdom. And these areas used to be part of Yemen at the beginning of the 20th century.

The spiritual leaders of the Ismaelis are originally from the Aghan Khan dynasty which emigrated in the 19th century to Afghanistan and then to India. The current President for this sect is Aghan Khan Karim (b. 1936). He is known for his charitable works for his sect, for Muslims and the developing countries in general.

Akhan Khan lives in France in Gofio, according to a web site for the Ismaeli community on the Internet.

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