RIYADH, 13 January 2004 — Security forces have confiscated 300 explosive belts and nearly 24 tons of explosive material, and arrested an unspecified number of people in its hunt for terror suspects, the Interior Ministry said yesterday.
The seizures by police, which took place over the past six months, included more than 300 rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, and more than 430 hand grenades — some of which were locally manufactured.
Security forces also seized 1,020 weapons, over 352,300 rounds of ammunition and 674 detonators as well as thwarting several criminal terrorist operations that were in the last phases of planning, the Saudi Press Agency quoted the ministry as saying.
Police have also confiscated communications devices, timers and equipment to set up truck bombs after raids on terrorist hideouts. The ministry statement also said security forces had detained “a large number” of people used as “terror tools.”
It said the ministry was determined to root out terrorists and their cells. “We will not show any leniency toward those who support or finance terrorists,” it added.
The ministry urged Saudi parents to protect their children from being exploited by terrorist organizations as tools to carry out their destructive operations.
It called upon Islamic scholars and the media to play a role to exterminate extremism from the country. “Terrorists want to impose their deviated thoughts and ideas on the country and its people,” the ministry said, adding that the policy of violence was totally against Islamic teachings.
Recorded statements of some of the arrested suspects showed that they were enticed by deviant thoughts. In the confessions broadcast on television, the repentant militants said they were lured by promises of paradise, lectures on the Muslim duty of jihad played on tapes from Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
It was not clear if any of the militants shown on television were directly involved in any of the attacks. They were not named and their faces were digitally obscured. “We say thank God we were caught before we carried out any crimes and harmed Muslims,” one man said.
One of them said they had training on how to use weapons in Makkah.
