Saudi Arabia Arrests 16 Terrorism Suspects

The Saudi government announced Monday that police arrested 16 suspected Al Qaeda-linked terrorists and used tractors to dig up an underground arsenal: 20 tons of bomb-making chemicals, detonators, rocket-propelled grenades and rifles.

Saudi forces also found night-vision goggles, surveillance cameras, bulletproof vests, passports and forged ID cards.

“These arrests put yet another dent in Al Qaeda’s terror network,” the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, said in a statement.

The sweep was the latest in Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on suspected terrorist cells, launched after the May 12 suicide bombings of Western housing compounds in Riyadh that killed 34 people, including the nine attackers.

The anti-terrorism raids followed repeated calls by the United States for Saudi Arabia to do more to curb Islamic militancy after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which were blamed on Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group and carried out by 19 plane hijackers, 15 of them Saudi.

An Interior Ministry official said the suspects were being interrogated. The official said police also found trucks waiting to be loaded with explosives by terrorists who “had been targeting vital installations to cause maximum disruption.”

Saudi TV showed a truck, car and motorcycle found in the suspects’ hide-outs at farms and rest houses outside Riyadh, the capital; in the central town of Qassim; and at a farm in Eastern province.

The broadcast also showed tractors at the hide-outs digging up sacks containing bomb-making chemicals and weapons that had been buried or hidden in a large cellar. The Saudi Embassy in Washington also said there were a number of weapons.

It was unclear if any of the 16 detainees were linked to the Riyadh bombings or a plot foiled to attack landmarks in the holy city of Mecca, incidents that angered many Saudis and increased pressure on authorities to do more to fight terrorism.