Saudis hold 13 tied to terror plots in kingdom Howard Schneider The Washington Post Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Aides acknowledge that Qaeda is still active in the country
CAIRO Saudi Arabia has arrested 13 suspected Al Qaeda members who allegedly plotted missile and bomb attacks in the kingdom and may have fired a rocket at a U.S. warplane.
The arrests, announced by the Saudi Press Agency on Tuesday but carried out over several weeks, are the first official acknowledgment by Saudi officials that the Qaeda organization remains active in their country.
Coupled with the recent arrest in Morocco of three Saudi nationals planning to attack American warships in the Straits of Gibraltar, they also highlight the prominent role that citizens of the conservative country play in Al Qaeda - something the country's leadership has battled hard to play down since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, is a native of Saudi Arabia, as were 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers.
"There is an indication that this was a serious group that had explosives in different parts of the country," said Jamal Khashoggi, editor of the English-language Arab News and an expert on extremist groups. "We aren't surprised Al Qaeda is active here and there, why not in its home territory?"
Since Sept. 11, the Saudi authorities have detained and interrogated dozens of suspected militants and have routinely questioned any Saudi citizens returning from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Saudi newspapers reported Tuesday that 160 such people were recently released after being cleared of any militant connections.
The arrest of the 13 suspects - 11 Saudis, an Iraqi and a Sudanese - indicates that bin Laden's group still functions on its leader's home soil. It also shows that Al Qaeda was able to reach the advanced stages of planning violent operations inside the country.
The information by the official Saudi Press Agency did not supply names or give much detail about the group. However, it said that the 13 suspects had smuggled explosives and weapons into the kingdom and hidden supplies in several locations in preparation for strikes around the country.
The group was apparently behind a suspected rocket attack directed against a U.S. plane or other target at the Prince Sultan Air Base, south of Riyadh. The presence of several thousand American troops and several hundred aircraft at the Saudi installation has been one of bin Laden's chief motivations for declaring a jihad against the United States. The prospect of a lone terrorist with a shoulder-launched rocket has been of enough concern that American pilots use special flight routines to avoid flying too low over the perimeter of the base. In early May, military officials did find an empty missile tube at the outskirts of the facility. Though no base pilots or personnel ever reported sighting a missile launch - the tube was found well out of range to be a threat - the discovery raised the possibility that terrorists were actively targeting the facility.
A Saudi official said Tuesday that the subsequent investigation traced the missile launcher to a Sudanese Al Qaeda member who had smuggled it into the country from Yemen, with local assistance, and had since returned to Khartoum.
On May 18, according to information supplied by the Sudanese government this week, the Saudis had asked that the man be arrested and sent to Saudi Arabia for trial. According to the Sudanese government release, he was arrested in Khartoum and confessed to having fired the rocket at a U.S. plane. His extradition this week prompted the Saudi disclosure that he was part of a much larger Al Qaeda cell, and the apparent missile attack only one in a series of planned operations.
A Saudi official described the Sudanese suspect as the central figure in the cell, but added that Saudi investigators were increasing efforts to find any other active Al Qaeda members.
"If they succeeded to do what they did, sure they will continue," the official said.
The Saudi operation appears to fit the pattern described by those involved in the recent arrests in Morocco. They said that late last year bin Laden ordered Al Qaeda operatives to disperse from Afghanistan and begin a series of freelance strikes against "American and Jewish interests."
It also fits the group's pattern of segregating operations. Six of those arrested were apparently concerned only with smuggling supplies and ensuring that their Sudanese compatriot got in an out of Saudi Arabia safely.
Saudi sniper attack reported
A sniper opened fire early this month on an Australian employee of BAE Systems in the northern part of the kingdom, a Saudi newspaper reported Tuesday, according to Reuters. The English-language Arab News quoted officials of BAE, formerly British Aerospace, and diplomats in Riyadh as saying that the Australian man was not hurt in the June 5 attack in the northern city of Tabuk, home to a large Saudi Air Force base. The unidentified sniper fled and the police were still looking for him.