RIYADH — A Saudi citizen who was brainwashed to fight in Iraq before he was deported back to the Kingdom is now fighting in the civil war in Syria, Al-Hayat newspaper reported. Ahmad Abdullah Al-Shaie narrowly escaped death and suffered scarring to his face and hands in a failed suicide attack that he previously denied carrying out in Iraq. He was deported back to the Kingdom in 2005. In Saudi Arabia he received both medical treatment and counseling in a bid to stop him repeating his actions. However, he shocked his family when he announced through his Twitter account that he had joined militants in Syria fighting the Syrian regime. His father Abdullah said his son traveled to Riyadh from Jeddah with his brother. He then disappeared and after five days called his father to tell him that he was at the Syrian border. Abdullah said, "I was shocked because I was trying to forget the bad experience when my son was in Iraq; now it is happening again in Syria." Abdullah said that he saw a picture of his son holding a machine gun and with burns still all over his body circulating online. The father said that he did not have any indication that Ahmad was trying to leave for Syria. Abdullah said in his appeal to his son: "Please return to your country and family." Al-Shaie said on Twitter that he tried to die as a martyr when he blew up a truck in Iraq but instead he was captured. He said that he was lucky to go and fight again in Syria. In an interview with a local daily back in 2007, Al-Shaie denied having carried out any suicide attempt in Iraq. He said that in 2005 he went to Iraq to fight US troops there. The leader of his group in Iraq asked him to drive a gas tanker to a place in the Al-Mansour district of Baghdad. Al-Shaie said he was suspicious about why he had been chosen and did not know there were explosives in the truck that then detonated as he was driving. He told the newspaper: “We thought the Iraqis were on our side. I never doubted them, as I used to see them fasting and praying. I thought they were doing jihad and it never crossed my mind that they may want to kill me.” Al-Shaie was convinced to fight in Iraq in 2005 after meeting an old friend who told him about jihad and stories of fighters in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The friend showed him a fatwa (religious edict) permitting Saudis to go to Iraq to fight without the approval of their parents and the country's government.
