Infant Beheaded in Saudi Supermarket

(Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) My guess is that this incident could have happened anywhere but one must not deny the fact that Middle Easterners are much more accustomed to beheadings than Westerners.

Early morning shoppers at a supermarket in Jeddah were left reeling yesterday, with some falling unconscious, after a well-built Syrian man clinched a knife and decapitated his 15-month-old nephew in front of his mother in the store's fruit and vegetable section.

Just freaking great! I'll have that horrible image in my brain forever.

In a brutal murder that has shocked the city, the 25-year-old man beheaded the boy, who was out shopping with his mother -- in full glare of shoppers and staff at Al-Marhaba supermarket on Sari Street around 9.30 a.m. The man, who is the boy's maternal uncle, apparently killed the boy following a dispute with his sister and brother-in-law.

Eyewitnesses said that the man picked up a knife from inside the store and severed the boy's head. The mother and a shopper standing close by fainted, while several other stood in shock and disbelief over what had happened.

A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Arab News, "The murderer was in a dispute with the boy's mother and her husband. He chopped off the boy's head in front of the mother to get back at her."

It's unfathomable that a simple family dispute led to the heartless, public beheading of a baby.