SAUDI Arabia revealed yesterday that it had arrested 208 militants for involvement in cells planning an imminent attack on an oil installation, as well as attacks on clerics and security forces.
State television in the world's biggest oil exporter said that one of the cells was planning to smuggle in missiles. Sympathisers of al-Qaeda have mounted a campaign against the monarchy, an ally of the United States, since 2003, following the invasi
on of Iraq.
A cell of eight militants led by a foreign resident planned an attack on an oil facility in the Eastern Province, the TV report said. Saudi Arabia has been building a 35,000-strong rapid reaction force to protect installations after a failed al-Qaeda attack in 2006 on the world's largest oil processing plant, at Abqaiq.
The report, citing an interior ministry statement, said 18 of those arrested belonged to a cell led by an "expert in launching missiles", who had slipped into the country. It said the militants had planned to smuggle eight projectiles into the kingdom.
Another 22 of those detained were reported to be plotting to assassinate clerics and security forces. The government has warned clerics to do more to stop Saudis heading to Iraq to join al-Qaeda militants fighting Allied forces and the US-backed Shiite Muslim government, which is considered heretical by hardline Sunni Saudis.
Al-Qaeda militants regard many clerics in Saudi Arabia as having been co-opted by the authorities into supporting the policies of the royal family, which dominates government.
Militants - boosted by calls from Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader, to target the pro-western Saudi government - have targeted foreign residential compounds, government buildings and energy-sector installations.
"This was a very large effort by security forces over the past... five months," an interior ministry spokesman told state television. The arrests also included a "media cell" of 16 in Medina, which aimed to promote "takfiri thinking" - the ideology of Sunni Muslim radicals that supports violence against Muslims branded as infidels and apostates.
Those arrested also included 32 people accused of providing financial support to militants.
The full article contains 361 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
