JEDDAH, 24 July 2003 — Authorities continued the search for suspects in their bid to wipe out terrorism from the Kingdom, while Mauritania ordered the closure of two Saudi Arabian charities yesterday.
The danger of terrorism still exists in our country, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif said in comments published by Al-Youm, two days after authorities announced the arrest of 16 Al-Qaeda terror suspects who had stockpiled a huge weapons arsenal and were preparing to assault vital installations in the Kingdom. “We cannot deny the existence of danger in any city in the Kingdom,” Prince Naif said adding that all 16 suspects who were arrested in the swoop north of Riyadh were Saudis.
The arrests brought to 240 the number of suspects detained in the crackdown that followed the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh. The minister said the 16 were linked to the 19 men involved in the May 12 attacks, but did not include any of those 19, the paper reported. Ten of the 19 Riyadh suspects still elude capture.
Authorities were looking for more suspects in connection with the arsenal found over the past four days in farms and rest houses in eastern and central Saudi Arabia.
The minister said some of the weapons seized were smuggled in, while the chemicals “could have been manufactured” here.
Also on Wednesday, an unidentified official with the Saudi border guard was quoted as saying that the weapons and explosives seized were smuggled from Yemen and Iraq. “The quantities caught in possession of the terrorists could not have been smuggled in in one operation. They were collected over a period of time,” he told Al-Watan.
Saudi TV had earlier shown several donation boxes that may have been a source of funding the operation. It also showed tractors digging up an underground arsenal that yielded 20 tons of bomb-making chemicals, detonators, rocket-propelled grenades and rifles.
An Interior Ministry official said that police had found trucks waiting to be loaded with explosives by suspects who “had been targeting vital installations to cause maximum disruption.”
Saudi forces also found night-vision goggles, surveillance cameras, bulletproof vests, passports and forged ID cards in farms outside Riyadh, Qasim and in the Eastern Province.
Prince Naif has previously said that terror groups “possibly” raise funds for their activities through charity organizations and that the government is taking steps to establish a new national authority to monitor and control almsgiving. Saudi Arabia has banned charity groups from sending money overseas until the national monitoring authority is established.
Mauritania, meanwhile, has ordered the closure of two Saudi Arabian charities, one of the organizations said in Mauritania. The move comes after a failed coup attempt last month. Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya blamed Islamists for inciting the coup.
A representative of the Saudi Preaching (Dawa) Center said it and another Islamic charity, the Global Islamic Rescue Organization, had been visited by officials on Sunday and ordered to close. (Additional input from agencies)
