Saudi security arrest 28 Al Qaeda suspects over hajj attack plot

RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday the arrest of 28 Al-Qaeda linked suspects for planning attacks in the oil-rich kingdom, following an alleged plot to commit a "terrorist act" during the hajj season.

"Since December 14, 28 members of the deviant group (the term used by the Saudi authorities for Al Qaeda) have been arrested, including one foreign resident and the rest Saudi nationals," an interior ministry official said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The statement said the suspects were "linked to elements abroad and were planning criminal acts in the kingdom." Saudi authorities, who have been battling a wave of deadly violence waged by militants since 2003, use the term criminal acts to refer to Al Qaeda attacks.

On Friday, the interior ministry said that security forces had arrested an Al-Qaeda-linked group planning a "terrorist act" during the hajj, which this year attracted about 2.5 million Muslims from across the globe.

The pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat reported on Saturday that seven non-Saudi Arabs had been arrested over the plot.

It said the arrests had not been announced earlier to avoid creating panic among the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Islam's holiest sites in and around Mecca in western Saudi Arabia.

Interior ministry spokesman General Mansur Turki said on Friday as the hajj was winding down that the militants "planned to carry out a terrorist act aimed at harming security and damaging the hajj." However he said the attack did not specifically target holy sites in Mecca or the pilgrims.

The authorities were on high alert this year because of the participation of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the first president from the Islamic republic to take part in the hajj.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef Ben Abdul Aziz said in early December his forces had foiled "more than 180 terrorist operations" since a wave of bombings and shootings by the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda erupted four years ago.

The Muslim kingdom also said it arrested 208 suspected Al Qaeda militants over the past few months who were plotting assassinations and an attack on a logistical oil facility.

The militants, who are followers of Saudi-born Al Qaeda chief Osama Ben Laden, espouse the ideology of "takfeer" - branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimise violence against them.

The hajj, in which all Muslims are expected to take part at least once in a lifetime if they have the means, has been hit by a series of disasters over the years, mostly caused by stampedes or fires.

There were no major incidents reported during this year's hajj.

However, in December 1979, 151 people were killed and 560 wounded after Saudi security forces stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca to rescue pilgrims held hostage by militants for about two weeks.

And in July 1989, one person was killed and 16 were wounded within the Grand Mosque sanctuary in a double attack blamed on 16 Kuwaiti Shiites who were executed later the same year.

Four hundred and two people were killed, including 275 Iranians, according to official Saudi figures, when security forces tried to break up an anti-US demonstration by Iranian pilgrims during the hajj in July 1987.


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