23. Dad Literally Fights Al-Qa’ida
Not me personally but my dad and the rest of our village had to fight back against an al-Qaeda suicide bomber and 3 gunmen in the middle of the night.
My dad is known as a liberal in our country (although in the US he would be considered more conservative). Being a liberal is usually dangerous in our country especially when you are fighting for obvious things like women and children’s rights. In our city my dad is quite famous for his businesses in the US and in Arab countries. What started the trouble was his history of speaking out against domestic violence.
Things like this apparently don’t sit well with fundamental religious people. What set them off was my dad creating high schools for females on our lands and encouraging them to have an education and not to resort to being a child bride.
Soon an al-Qaeda member caught word of all this. So, Late last summer, four people came to our village at around 11 pm hoping to bomb my dad and his friends in our guest house.
One of the villagers spotted the four odd strangers walking out of the main road and asked them where they were going. When they wouldn’t respond the villager called for help and kept them on the street at gunpoint (everyone has an AK47 or two in the rural villages if not more).
It is essential to understand that the village is made up of mountains and our houses are built on the mountain to overlook the crops and the valley. When the villagers, my dad included, came (armed with each his gun as is custom) to see what the fuss was about, three of the four members backed off and hid behind rocks then pulled their weapons and started shooting while the suicide bomber made his trek upwards towards my dad. No one shot them while they hid because we didn’t want to be the first to shoot.
Anyways, this was at night and the advantage of high-ground and knowing the terrain was for the villagers. Two shooters died in the gunfire and the other was fatally wounded and died in the mountains to be found some time later. On his way up suicide bomber tripped on some loose mountain rocks and triggering the bomb. He was also carrying pouches of rusted nails on his person to act as additional shrapnel. The bomb’s blaze went up in an inferno definitely enough to kill a large room full of people, but the natural rocky barrier of the mountain kept us safe from the shrapnel.
Because of the premature detonation, all our villagers were safe, but having fatally wounded four al Qaeda members everyone feared their lives.
After that, those who were young and had passports were sent off to other countries until my dad and the village elders could negotiate a cease-fire. We used to go every summer but I still haven’t been back since. My dad, on the other hand goes back and makes sure the schools are running smooth and no one is his harassing his property in his absence.
