JEDDAH, 1 July 2003 — Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, yesterday said Saudi citizens faced a huge responsibility to work together to stem terrorism, adding that the threat of extremist thought and ideology must be firmly resisted.
“Our youth must be inoculated against alien ideas. Families, schools and mosques as well as the country’s ulema and intellectuals and the media and every sincere person must contribute to this effort in order to expose alien thoughts and show the truth,” Prince Abdullah told the weekly Cabinet session which he chaired at Al-Salam Palace here.
Culture and Information Minister Dr. Fouad Al-Farsy said the Cabinet reviewed reports on the efforts to uproot terrorism and its supporters. The minister underlined the citizens’ role in this effort and commended their cooperation with the security forces.
Dr. Al-Farsy told the Saudi Press Agency that Prince Abdullah briefed the Cabinet on the contacts that took place over the week with leaders and delegates of Arab and Muslim countries, which focused on the situation in the occupied Palestinian lands and the region as a whole. These contacts, he added, aimed at finding ways to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people and the attacks and other hardships they continue to face on a daily bases under Israeli occupation.
On the occasion of the end of the academic year, the crown prince congratulated students on the results they achieved and urged them to make use of the summer by engaging in useful activities.
The Cabinet approved economic cooperation agreements between Saudi Arabia and the republic of Ukraine.
The Cabinet also approved the veterinary quarantine law governing the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and asked the minister of agriculture to follow its implementation. The law deals with the import and export of all animals and animal products as well as fodder among the six countries and details the measures to be adopted when dealing with cases calling for barring sick animals.
The Cabinet also approved the appointment of Dr. Ibrahim ibn Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil as secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for Education Policies in addition to other appointments at the Ministry of Civil Service and Labor and Social Affairs.
Last week Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd commended the security forces for the successes they continue to achieve in the fight against terrorism and said the authorities would continue to hunt down terrorists and all those who threaten public peace and security.
Crown Prince Abdullah likened terrorists to a rotten tree and said they would be uprooted and erased from the face of the earth.
Interior Minister Prince Naif said so far more than 50 people suspected of links to the suicide bombings in Riyadh and other related incidents in the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah had been arrested. Those detained included several women. The last leading figure arrested from the list of the 19 wanted for the bombings was Ali Abdul Rahman Al-Faqaasi, who voluntarily handed himself in to the authorities on Thursday.
