The US and Britain, citing credible intelligence reports, warned their nationals on Wednesday of terror threats to aviation and other interests in Saudi Arabia, and British Airways suspended all flights to the kingdom.
The warnings followed two clashes in three days in the Saudi capital Riyadh between police and Islamic militants that began with a shootout on Sunday and continued with a full-blown gun battle on Tuesday.
As the George W. Bush administration hailed the success of a sting operation that netted a would-be arms smuggler, the State Department asked Americans to defer travel to Saudi Arabia.
"The US government has received indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests, including the targeting of transportation and civil aviation," it said in a statement.
"There is credible information that terrorists have targeted Western aviation interests in Saudi Arabia," it added. "American citizens in Saudi Arabia should remain vigilant, particularly in public places."
Earlier, Britain issued a security warning. "There is credible intelligence of a serious threat to UK aviation interests in Saudi Arabia," a government spokesman said.
British Airways, the only British carrier that flies to the kingdom, said it had decided to suspend flights after consultations with the British government.
Other European carriers said they had no plans to stop Saudi flights. When a similar warning of a threat to British aircraft in Kenya was issued in May, British Airways was the only major airline to suspend flights. They resumed last month.
As the world's top oil supplier, Saudi Arabia is vital to the world economy and a spate of bombings and bloody clashes there has raised concerns over world fuel supplies.
The bombing of a Western compound in Riyadh in May, in which 35 people were killed, triggered a crackdown by Saudi authorities on Islamic militants. Since then at least 16 suspects and 11 police officers have been killed in a series of clashes.
Both Britain and the US have already warned their citizens against non-essential travel to the kingdom.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a document found during a roundup of suspected Islamic militants this week had indicated that King Khalid airport had been under surveillance, presumably for a possible attack.
The document did not specify what type of attack but mentioned British planes, one official said, adding: "It's clear that they were paying attention to British planes."
US President George W. Bush told reporters at his Texas ranch that the sting operation underscored efforts to improve airport security, declaring America "a safe place for people to fly."
Briton Hemant Lakhani, 68, an arms dealer accused of trying to sell a Russian-made shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, appeared in court in Newark, New Jersey, on Wednesday on charges of providing material support to terrorists and of illegal weapons dealing.
Separate criminal complaints were filed against a New York City jeweller and an Indian citizen who arrived in the US from Malaysia. Prosecutors said both men had served as financial middlemen for the would-be deal.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS