Saudi clampdown intensifies
Those who had doubts that the House of Saud is determined to destroy the Al-Qa'eda cells in the country should finally be convinced, writes John R Bradley* from Jeddah
Saudi Arabia took its war on terror to Mecca last week, breaking up a suspected terrorist cell in Islam's holiest city as it was preparing to launch an attack on an unspecified target. Local newspapers reported that a "major terrorist bombing" was in the final stages of preparation when five suspected terrorists and two security men were killed in a gun-fight on Saturday night, which broke out when a car failed to heed a call by traffic police to stop. Five other officers and four citizens were injured in the battle, which raged throughout the night.
Four suspects were also wounded in another clash on Sunday on the outskirts of Mecca, local newspapers said, adding that at least six more extremists had been arrested. The Saudi daily Okaz reported on Monday that suspects who escaped Saturday's raid fled in a car that broke down on the outskirts of Mecca on Sunday afternoon. The men continued on foot and four were arrested at a mosque complex just outside Mecca on Sunday evening. A fifth made it to the mountains surrounding Mecca where he was cornered, threatening to detonate a bomb. After a three-hour standoff, the suspect was overpowered and arrested; his bomb did not go off, the paper said. The paper did not give details on the arrest of the sixth suspect.
In the two separate operations at least five terror suspects were killed and four were wounded, and several others arrested, including two from Chad, an Egyptian and a Saudi. These were the most deadly confrontations between Islamists and the House of Saud since the 1979 Mecca uprising, when radicals took over the Grand Mosque in protest against the Westernisation of Saudi society and the alleged corruption of the government. Some 1,200 Sunni Muslim extremists seized the mosque, but the revolt was crushed.
After this week's clashes, local newspapers damned the Al- Qa'eda cell for apparently planning to hit targets in the holy city. The Interior Ministry said the wanted terrorists, who number several dozen, were planning to carry out an imminent attack. Police seized from the booby-trapped apartment at which they had been based some 72 locally-made bombs of various sizes, in addition to several automatic rifles, guns, ammunition, communication devices, chemicals for manufacturing bombs and masks.
It was the third bloody confrontation between armed militants and Saudi security forces in the past two weeks. A crackdown on hard-line Islamist elements gained momentum in the kingdom after suicide bombings killed 26 people at three expatriate compounds in the capital on 12 May. Analysts say the Riyadh blasts provoked popular support for the kingdom's decision-makers to push ahead with a determined programme to eradicate the terror infrastructure as well as the ideology.
Saudi security forces are still searching for other suspects, including 10 members of a cell of 19 uncovered just a few days before the Riyadh bombings. Interior Minister Prince Naif on Saturday blamed Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden's Al- Qa'eda terror network for the attacks, and announced that some 30 suspects had been rounded up since the May bombings.
On Monday, the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat quoted the father of the suspected 12 May mastermind, who was among the cell of 19 who escaped on 6 May, as calling on his son to surrender. Saudi authorities have identified Ali Abdul-Rahman Al-Faqasi Al-Ghamdi as one of the main suspects still at large. US officials have said Al-Ghamdi is among Al- Qa'eda's top men in Saudi Arabia.
"We tell Ali, be fair with us, your parents and family as God asked you, and turn yourself in," Abdul-Rahman Al-Ghamdi was quoted as saying, adding that Saudi authorities had promised he would receive a lighter punishment if he surrendered.
* The writer is the managing editor of the Jeddah-based Arab News.
