JEDDAH: The Kingdom announced on Wednesday the arrest of 44 suspected militants linked to an Al-Qaeda cell. The deviants sought to recruit youths and used to finance their activities through charitable donations.
“The suspects were arrested over a period of one year. The operation began on July 20, 2008, and ended on Aug. 2 this year,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki.
“Forty-three of those arrested are Saudi nationals,” said Al-Turki. He said that some of them had received training in the Kingdom and abroad on the use of light and heavy weapons. Some had received training on mixing and detonating explosive materials. Others received training in counterfeiting documents and identity cards. Their ages ranged between 20 and 60.
An Interior Ministry statement said 17 Kalashnikov rifles, 50 machine guns, 42 cases of ammunition and 96 remote electronic detonators were also seized. The spokesman added that the detonators were located underground in two remote areas. One was in the suburbs of Qassim and the other in a valley near the city of Riyadh.
The identities of those arrested were not revealed, but Al-Turki said among them were individuals with proper technical qualifications and some with advanced university degrees.
“None of those arrested figure in the list of 85 wanted militants issued in February,” he said. “We found 39 magazines hidden in a secret compartment behind a concrete wall inside the home of one of the suspects,” he said.
Investigations showed that some of the suspects were in contact with senior Al-Qaeda commanders operating outside the Kingdom. Some were also in contact with local Al-Qaeda operatives killed in recent clashes with the security forces in the Kingdom. The suspects took advantage of charity works to plan and attempt to execute terror attacks in the country. Some of those arrested used their own money to finance their operations.
Al-Turki said that unless terrorism was eliminated from the roots, it would be difficult to prevent the formation of such terror cells in the future.
“Takfeeri ideology needs to be rooted out from both the local and international scene in order to win the war on terrorism,” he said. “Thus it is very difficult to say that the war on terror is over or that the cell busted is the last one. The Kingdom, however, will not stop its fight against terrorism.”
Saudi security forces have scored many successes in foiling terror attacks in the Kingdom over the past two years. The interior minister recently said Saudi security forces had foiled 160 terrorist attacks.
Saudi Arabia has pursued an aggressive campaign against militants since May 2003, when they first began attacks in the Kingdom. Militants have been responsible for more than 30 attacks in the Kingdom since May 2003. Ninety civilians and 74 members of the security forces have been killed, while 439 civilians and 657 members of the security forces were injured. A number of terror suspects, including three whose names were on the list of 85 suspects released by the Interior Ministry, will soon go on trial in Saudi courts. This will be the second trial of Saudi suspects since judgment was handed down on July 8 against 330 terror suspects indicted in 179 terror-related cases.
