Suicide bombers are 'criminals'

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh called suicide bombers as “criminals” who will go to “hell.”

Suicide bombings are “great crimes” and bombers are “criminals who rush themselves to hell by their actions,” Sheikh said during a lecture in Riyadh a few days ago.

Sheikh described suicide bombers as “robbed of their minds… who have been used (as tools) to destroy themselves and societies.”

His latest remarks come after a preliminary inquiry into a December 5 suicide car bombing and assault on a Yemen defence ministry complex found that most assailants were Saudis. Fifty-six people were killed in the attack.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which was formed from a merger of the jihadist network’s Saudi and Yemeni branches, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

On Tuesday, a Saudi court jailed an Al Qaeda-linked jihadist for 16 years for plotting to kill Sheikh and other clerics.