Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had arrested 208 people for involvement in several cells that planned an ”imminent attack” on an oil installation, and attacks on clerics and security forces.
State television said one of the cells was planning to smuggle in missiles. Al-Qaeda sympathisers have mounted a campaign against the United States-allied Saudi monarchy since 2003.
A cell of eight militants led by a foreign resident planned an attack on an oil facility in the Eastern Province of the world’s largest oil-exporting nation, said the report, citing an Interior Ministry statement.
”Security forces foiled an imminent attack on an oil support installation in the Eastern Province after the perpetrators prepared themselves and set a date,” state television said.
The report said 18 of those arrested belonged to a cell led by an ”expert in launching missiles” who had slipped into the country. Another 22 were part of a group that plotted to kill clerics and security forces, it said.
It also said the arrests included a ”media cell” of 16 in Medina, which aimed to promote takfiri ideology, the ideas held by Sunni Muslim radicals that support violence against Muslims branded as infidels and apostates.
Al-Qaeda sympathisers — boosted by calls from Saudi-born Osama bin Laden to target the pro-Western Saudi government — have targeted foreign residential compounds, government buildings and energy sector installations since May 2003.
The last major operation was in February 2006 when an attempt to attack an oil-processing plant at Abqaiq was foiled. Since then the authorities have announced the break-up of cells involving several hundreds of people.
The government has warned clerics in recent months to do more to stop Saudis heading to Iraq to join al-Qaeda militants fighting US forces and the US-backed Shi’ite Muslim government, considered heretical by hard-line Sunni Saudis.
Al-Qaeda militants regard many clerics in Saudi Arabia as having been co-opted by the authorities into supporting the policies of the royal family, which dominates government.
”They are unravelling networks but these are not hardcore people, they are peripheral,” a Western diplomat said. The government was worried about ”complacency” that the campaign against the militants was over, the diplomat said. — Reuters