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Saudi Arabia says it has arrested 700 militants this year
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Friday, Jun 27, 2008, Page 6
Saudi Arabia has arrested 700 militants in the past six months on suspicion of planning attacks on the country¡¦s oil industry and other targets, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.
The figure suggests that Saudi security forces still face a significant threat from al-Qaeda despite the perception, at least in the West, that the organization has been effectively beaten in the country of Osama bin Laden¡¦s birth.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said in an interview last month that al-Qaeda had suffered ¡§near strategic defeat¡¨ in both Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Saudi security forces arrested 701 people of various nationalities, said ministry spokesman, General Mansour al-Turki. Of those, 520 ¡X divided into five cells ¡X were still being held for involvement in the organizational and ideological plans of the ¡§deviant ideology¡¨ ¡X the Saudi official term for al-Qaeda. The others were released for lack of evidence.
The televised statement said those arrested had planned to revive ¡§criminal activities¡¨ and that their leaders were based abroad. The detainees included some of Asian and African nationality. Some had planned to use car bombs to attack an oil installation and a security target in coordination with bin Laden¡¦s Egyptian deputy, Ayman al- Zawahri, who would send fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa to support them.
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