They rent cars and houses using stolen IDs. They disguise themselves as women or as hip young men. The money they raise for Iraqi prisoners in US jails funds terror operations.
This, Saudi officials say, is the kind of information they're getting from scores of Saudi militants arrested in an aggressive government campaign. Two suspects have appeared on TV to talk about life underground, telling of wounded comrades who died from lack of medical care, some supposedly devout activists who know little of Islam and others who consider all Saudis in uniform to be infidels.
Such information has enabled the kingdom to strike at the root of al-Qaeda's Saudi infrastructure, kill or capture several of its leaders, and publicly portray it in a humiliating light.
But no one is willing to declare the network dead or paralyzed, and foreigners know the successes do not mean they should let their guard down.
The US embassy is still warning Americans that they face a "serious threat to their safety while in Saudi Arabia" and that credible information indicates terrorists "continue to target residential compounds" in the kingdom. The warnings came after a violent period in which a compound and two oil companies were attacked in the Eastern Province, several Westerners were killed in Riyadh, and a US hostage was beheaded.
"It's not in our security interest to assume they cannot carry out a large operation," said Brigadier General Mansour al-Turki, the Interior Ministry spokesman. "If we assume they can't, it would have an adverse effect on our alertness and level of preparedness to confront them."
He said the picture of operations in the kingdom is clearer than in May last year, when terrorists struck inside Saudi Arabia for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Until then the Saudi government had been in denial about the possibility that Saudi-born Osama bin Laden would strike inside the kingdom and risk inflicting Saudi or Muslim casualties.
"We had never expected that a Muslim who grew up on Islam in this country would carry out such acts," al-Turki said.
He said authorities have since foiled several terror attempts, including the capture of two cars rigged with explosives, as a result of heightened vigilance.
Al-Turki said the authorities are more familiar with the operatives' modus operandi. For instance, after a confrontation with police, militants usually reach safe houses by stealing a string of cars. They disguise themselves as women or strive for a modern look by shaving their beards, wearing funky hairstyles and dressing in jogging suits.
But the newer operatives don't have the know-how to structure a cell, find a safe house or rig a car with explosives, said one source close to the government.
"Their last leaders are still out there, but they're spending all their time trying to avoid capture, trying to determine what safe houses have been compromised and which militants have turned against them instead of planning for an attack."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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