JEDDAH: Saudi security forces have arrested 11 Al-Qaeda suspects who were planning to carry out terrorist attacks inside the Kingdom and kidnap security officers and other “useful” individuals, said Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki yesterday.

The group, all Saudis, was planning to attack police installations and undertake kidnappings and robberies to finance their operations, Al-Turki told Arab News by telephone. “They were almost ready to carry out terrorist acts against the Kingdom,” he said, adding that police seized guns and ammunition from the “terrorist cell.”

Al-Turki said it was too early to say precisely what their possible links to other groups were. He, however, confirmed that “they do have relationships to others outside the Kingdom.”

He added that they were armed with pistols and shotguns, and that their planned attacks focused on the immediate area in the south of the Kingdom.

Saudi state television showed some of the seized weapons which included automatic machine guns, explosive belts and ammunition.

“They were not arrested at once, but taken one by one until we were certain we had all of them,” he said.

The arrested militants were planning to kidnap government officials and security officers. They were also carrying video cameras to film their operations for uploading on the Internet, added Al-Turki.

Al-Turki said the detainees were not in the list of 85 suspects, announced earlier this year. He said an investigation is under way. Some of the 85 wanted militants are believed to be in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has, over the past year, been concerned with the rise of an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen and its contacts with Saudi militants inside Yemen and in the Kingdom.

Several known Saudi militants have made their way into Yemen to join Al-Qaeda operations there. In 2003 and 2004, armed militants linked to Al-Qaeda, most of them Saudis, staged a string of lethal attacks against both Saudi targets and Westerners living in the country, killing dozens of people. Hundreds of suspected militants were arrested in the wake of those attacks.

In March 2008, Saudi security forces arrested 28 militants who, the authorities said, were involved in rebuilding the Al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia to launch another campaign of terror. The militants were collecting money under the pretext of supporting the needy in Pakistan and Afghanistan — money that was being used “to finance their criminal activities,” said Al-Turki after the arrests.