Reality Check

There was a car bombing here Saturday night. An Egyptian IT engineer, Omar Ali, loaded his Landcruiser with explosives and slammed it into a crowded theatre in Doha. A Shakespeare play was in progress, and fortunately the theatre hall was well away from the entry, so casualties were fewer than they could have been. As it was one man was killed(the director), and about a dozen were injured. All but two of the injured were treated and released that night.

The perpetrator had a wife and three children, including a month old baby. Unbelievable.

The victim was a British professor. His wife was there too but was unhurt. I didn’t know him but friends of ours did. The injured were mostly Qataris and Indians. Most people here are pretty stoic about it, I don't know of anyone who is leaving, for instance. We have expected something like this since the outset. If we offset that risk with the lack of certain other risks here, it still works out to be a pretty safe country. That was the first real random violence attack in Qatar. There was another bombing a couple of years ago, but it was directed at a certain Chechen leader. Those responsible were caught (and no they weren’t sentenced to death) and repatriated to Russia, where they are serving long sentences.

The Qataris have been great. There was a huge demonstration against violence the following day, about 4000, mostly Qataris attended. Various people spoke out against the perpetrators of such bombings, including Yusuf Qaradawi, a famous cleric here. He more or less “ex-communicated” the people who would do this. He has a show on al-Jazeera and is pretty well known.

Otherwise everything is fine here.