Executions Saudi Arabia

When the body of nurse Yvonne Gilford was found Dec. 11, fear rippled through the walled compounds where foreigners live in Saudi Arabia. The 55-year-old Australian had suffered a grisly death. She had been stabbed four times, beaten with a hammer and suffocated in her bed. In a country that by world standards is almost crime-free, some wondered if a maniac was on the loose. Or was the murder politically motivated, akin to the bombing of the U.S.

Saudi authorities Friday beheaded four Muslim militants who blew up a U.S.-run military facility in Riyadh, killing five Americans and two Indians. The convicts, all Saudi Arabians, were executed despite threats by underground extremists that they would attack American interests in the kingdom if the four were punished for the Nov. 13 attack.