But obviously this work of memorization didn’t make him non-violent. From the New York Post, with thanks to Nicolei:
IN recent months, he has been the world’s second- most active terrorist, his roll call of atrocities eclipsed only by that of the ubiquitous Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
But this past weekend, Abdulaziz Al-Muqrin, al Qaeda’s chief of operations for the Arabian Peninsula, upped the ante considerably in his jihad against the West.
In a statement issued on several Islamist Web sites, Al-Muqrin’s group has claimed responsibility for the murder of one American, Kenneth Scroggs, and kidnapping of another, Lockheed Martin employee Paul Johnson, in Riyadh on Saturday.
Al-Muqrin, also known as “Abu Hajar,” seems hell-bent on upholding his recent pledge to make this summer “bloody and miserable for infidels.”
Just last week, he vowed through an Islamist Web site that al Qaeda would target Western airlines, military bases and residential compounds in “the near future.” And on May 29, he claimed responsibility for the chaotic assault on Western oil facilities in the Saudi city of Khobar that killed 22 people, including one American. …
Al-Muqrin is suspected of having engineered suicide bombings in Riyadh in May and November 2003 that took 53 lives (including nine Americans) and is thought to have been the architect of an April 21 attack in the Saudi capital that killed five people and wounded 148. And he claimed responsibility for a May 1 shooting spree in the Saudi oil center of Yanbu that killed six Westerners and one Saudi.
According to Al-Muqrin, the Yanbu attack, like the one in Khobar, was designed to stem the flow of Saudi oil, thereby harming the country’s economy. …
It is unclear how the Saudi government will deal with Al-Muqrin, if it catches him. In 1997, after being extradited to Saudi Arabia by Ethiopian authorities, Al-Muqrin was sentenced to eight years in prison. But the Saudi Interior Ministry released him in the summer of 2001, reportedly because he had memorized the Koran while behind bars.