JEDDAH, 30 April 2004 — Security forces have foiled “dozens” of planned major attacks in the Kingdom while a group of suspected terrorists hiding in the rugged Al-Ammariya area northwest of Riyadh are still being pursued, Prince Naif, the interior minister said.
“Security forces have foiled dozens of attacks which, had they taken place, would have made the Al-Muhaya and Al-Washm (attacks) seem insignificant,” Prince Naif told reporters in Dhahran on Wednesday after attending a graduation ceremony for a group of private school students.
On May 12 last year, suicide bombers hit Al-Hamra residential compound in Riyadh killing 35 people, and a car bomb attack last week in the capital’s Al-Washm district left five dead and 145 people wounded. The latest attack targeted the building of the General Directorate of Traffic Police.
Prince Naif again called on terrorists to surrender saying that the authorities will show some leniency toward those who voluntarily give themselves up. He warned that if they did not, they would be hunted, arrested and brought to justice.
He said information surrounding the aborted operations, which would be released in the future, would show what the security forces had done to spare the country more harm.
Last week’s car bomb attack in Riyadh “was only a minute part of a vast operation that was largely aborted. All the details of the investigation will be made public in time,” he said. Security forces are still hunting a group of suspected terrorists in Al-Ammariya region, some 40 km northwest of Riyadh, the minister said. “The security services will find their tracks and continue to hunt them down.”
The security forces were continuing a major operation against at least four suspects who have fled to a rugged, cave-riddled enclave northwest of the capital. Some of the suspects are believed to appear on the Ministry of Interior list of most-wanted terror suspects issued last December. One is Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin, who took over as Al-Qaeda’s chief for the Kingdom from Khaled Ali Haj, who was shot dead by police in Riyadh on March 16 together with Ibrahim Al-Mizyani, also wanted for security reasons.
They were both killed inside their vehicle during a shootout with security forces in Al-Naseem district of the capital.
Prince Naif warned those who support terrorists and show sympathy toward them would be themselves treated as criminals. He said anyone who abets and sympathizes with terrorists or turns a blind eye on what they are doing are more dangerous than the terrorists.
“The crime of these is no less serious than that of the terrorists and perhaps it is even more serious. They will be identified and prosecuted. They will be considered criminals unless they repent and give up their action and change from being sympathizers and supporters to ones who report these terrorists,” he said.
