A rchive Date
[ 18-06-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Saudi Arabia ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSAttack0206/18_saudi-ap.html
Saudis arrest terror suspects
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia has detained a number of Saudis and foreigners linked to al-Qaida who were planning terror attacks in the kingdom, the official Saudi Press Agency said Tuesday.
It said they were targeting a number of "vital" installations and were planning to use explosives and surface-to-air missiles.
The agency, quoting an unidentified source at the Interior Ministry, said Tuesday that six Saudis and a Sudanese citizen were arrested several months ago.
The Sudanese hid with the help of another group that included five Saudis and an Iraqi who later smuggled him outside the country. The second group also was arrested.
On Sunday, the Sudanese government announced it had handed over for trial in Saudi Arabia a Sudanese man who claimed to have fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. warplane at a Saudi air base. That Sudanese suspect appears to be the same man referred to in Tuesday's Saudi Press Agency report.
Sudan's Interior Ministry had said in a statement that the man admitted firing a missile at a plane taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base, south of the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Last week, a U.S. official said a Sudanese man suspected of being an al-Qaida cell leader had acknowledged shooting a shoulder-fired SA-7 surface-to-air missile at an American plane taking off from the base.
Fears that a missile had been fired at a U.S. plane in the Persian Gulf state surfaced in May after Saudi security guards found a missile launcher tube about three kilometres from a runway at the desert base. It was unclear when the missile was fired.
The Sudanese Interior Ministry statement said the man had sneaked back into Sudan from Saudi Arabia. The statement did not identify the man or say how or when he returned to Sudan.
About 4,500 U.S. troops and an unspecified number of American warplanes use the Saudi base. The presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, since the 1991 Gulf War is one of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's stated reasons for attacks on Americans.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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