JEDDAH, 11 June 2004 — Four Saudi teenagers have been arrested after attacking two Westerners working as aircraft maintenance technicians in two separate incidents in the summer resort city of Taif, to the east of Jeddah.
The four were in police custody yesterday and being questioned on the motives behind the attacks.
In one incident a Westerner was verbally abused by three teenagers at a local restaurant “serving traditional dishes,” according to the paper. One of them tried to stab the man with a knife but he escaped unhurt.
In the other, a 17-year old rammed the second victim in his car, according to Al-Watan daily.
Police received two separate complaints on the incidents and moved quickly to arrest the four youth.
Meanwhile in Jeddah, security forces arrested a man, described as a Chadian national, wanted in connection with a shooting incident last year in the holy city of Makkah.
In that incident police stormed an apartment in the holy city and exchanged fire with dozens of terrorists. Five of the terrorists were killed and twelve arrested, including three Chadians. The man in yesterday’s Jeddah arrest had fled the scene and gone underground until he was flushed out of a house in the Bawadi district in northern Jeddah.
Police are questioning the building’s owner to discover how the terrorist managed to rent the building, according to Okaz daily.
Meanwhile Culture and Information Minister Dr. Fouad Al-Farsy has sent a message to BBC Chairman Michael Grade expressing his deep sorrow over the Riyadh terror attack last week in which freelance Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed and BBC correspondent, Frank Gardner, critically wounded when gunmen opened fire at them in Riyadh’s Suwaidi district.
The two were filming at the former home of a top wanted militant who was gunned down by police last year and were accompanied by a Ministry of Information minder at the time of the attack.
Dr. Al-Farsy said in his cable that when journalists become the target of aggression, truth is the casualty. “Our hearts are with the families of this attack and their colleagues at the BBC.”
“The government of Saudi Arabia is determined to pursue the criminals and inflict ... punishment on them in order to root out terrorism in line with the Kingdom’s policy,” the minister told the BBC chairman.
He added the Kingdom was making every effort and mobilizing support at all regional and international levels from brotherly countries to fight terrorism and rid the country of “this menace.”
