Saudis Admit Al Qaeda May Have Camps in Their Country

Saudi authorities said Muslim militants arrested or killed in recent police raids were trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and possibly even in Saudi Arabia, acknowledging for the first time that the kingdom may have been infiltrated by Osama bin Laden’s terrorism network.

The revelation that Al Qaeda may have Saudi training facilities contrasted with earlier claims by Saudi officials playing down the extent of the group’s presence in the kingdom.

Interior Minister Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz said most of the suspects “received their military training in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan,” but he acknowledged that “a small number perhaps were trained on farms and the like inside the country.” His comments were carried in an interview published Tuesday in the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al Awsat.

More than 200 suspects have been reported arrested and more than a dozen killed in police shootouts in 13 raids throughout the kingdom since May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh, the capital. That attack, which killed 25 Saudis and Westerners and nine attackers, was blamed on Al Qaeda.

The raids followed repeated calls by the U.S. government for Saudi Arabia to do more to curb Islamic militancy after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

U.S. officials said they were aware of some Al Qaeda training activity in Saudi Arabia but said it was small-scale and clandestine. It does not approach the large camps that Bin Laden operated in Afghanistan, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. Bin Laden also was born in Saudi Arabia, although the kingdom revoked his citizenship in 1994.