JEDDAH, 30 March 2006 — Saudi security forces arrested 40 suspected terrorists in three different operations around the Kingdom in the past two weeks, the Interior Ministry announced yesterday. “It was not one operation but a series of operations aimed at tackling terror early on,” ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour Al-Turki told Arab News.
Those arrested are suspected members of Al-Qaeda terrorist cells, some of whom appear to have links to the Feb. 25 foiled attack on the Al-Abqaiq oil refinery in the Eastern Province. The ministry has not released the names of any of the detained suspects.
The ministry statement said that security forces tracked a number of suspicious movements in various areas of the Kingdom by people who were stockpiling weapons, providing material and financial support to the terrorists’ cause, and using the Internet to spread subversive propaganda and promoting acts of violence.
In one operation, Saudi security forces tracked 19 suspects who were eventually arrested. The suspects were arrested for “adopting the perverted ideology and spreading it through the Internet plus executing criminal acts along with providing financial support for those activities,” said the ministry statement.
In another operation, security forces arrested eight suspects linked to the perpetrators of the failed Al-Abqaiq oil refinery attack where two vehicles were stopped at the gate after a shootout that left two attackers and two security officers dead.
The suspects allegedly provided members of the cell involved in the attack with shelter, funds and propaganda that had been posted on the Internet. Security forces confiscated weapons, documents, electronic devices and other items.
In a third operation, 13 suspects were rounded up in the city of Al-Abqaiq. In one of their hide-outs authorities discovered 99 Russian-made grenades, 22 tear gas grenades, 18 Kalashnikovs, four flares, 131 machine-gun magazines and two hunting rifles and a metal detector. In addition to the weapons and explosives charges, the suspects have also been accused of fund-raising for their cause. Saudi security forces also discovered and disarmed explosive devices planted in two separate vehicles near the country’s largest oil refinery at Al-Abqaiq, an Arabic local daily newspaper reported yesterday.
The paper said security forces broke into a house Tuesday in the town of Al-Muntaar where Saudi Arabian Oil Company employees live to find two booby-trapped cars with the company’s logo on them.
The daily said several bombs, machine guns and explosive materials were found, adding that the owner of the house was arrested and was being interrogated.
Al-Turki said that there were only two terror suspects at large from a list released by the Interior Ministry in June of known suspected terrorists believed to have been in the Kingdom. “If we see that there is a need to issue a new list in the upcoming two weeks we shall,” said Al-Turki. “It depends on our investigation.”
The leader of the Al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia, Fahd ibn Faraj Al-Joweir, was among five militants killed in a shootout in the Al-Yarmouk district of Riyadh on Feb. 28. Al-Joweir was accused of being behind the foiled attack on the Al-Abqaiq refinery three days earlier. Two terrorists were killed in the attack when their two car bombs exploded.
The Al-Qaeda terrorist network claimed responsibility for the February attack in a statement published on an Al-Qaeda website, and announced preparations for further attacks on the Saudi oil industry
