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Saudis foil Hajj Terror Plot |
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Sunday, 23 December 2007 |
Saudi authorities have arrested 28 members of an al-Qaeda linked
group planning to carry out terrorist attacks during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
"Security forces have foiled a plot to carry out a terror attack on holy sites
outside Mecca with the aim of confounding security forces,'' Interior Ministry
spokesman Mansour al-Turki said Friday.
"The group was arrested three days before the Hajj season,'' he added, meaning
that the men were taken into custody approximately a week earlier.
Earlier the Dubai-based television Al-Arabiya reported, "The group aimed to
trouble the security of the pilgrimage" which has this week attracted almost
three million Muslims from around the world to Islam's holiest sites in western
Saudi Arabia.
Al-Turki gave no further details on the identity of those arrested.
Three weeks before the Hajj began the Saudi government announced a massive
security sweep that netted 208 suspected al-Qaeda militants plotting to carry
out attacks against the kingdom's oil infrastructure.
Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, in response to these arrests,
explained that his forces had foiled "more than 180 terrorist operations" since
a wave of bombings and shootings by the Saudi branch of al-Qaeda broke out four
years ago.
One of those arrested is a foreign resident while the rest are Saudi nationals,
it said without giving further details. "The (public) interest requires that
further details be withheld for the time being," it said.
The synchronized operations leading to the arrests began in mid-December, SPA
said.
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