Saudis Say Terror Plot Foiled

Saudi authorities have foiled a number of terror plots and arrested 16 suspects, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

Security forces were able to stop plots against a number of vital installations and sites with the arrests in the capital Riyadh, al-Qasim north of Riyadh, and the Eastern Province, an unidentified ministry official told the official Saudi Press Agency.

The official did not say whether any of those arrested had been linked to May 12 suicide bombings of Westerners' housing compounds in Riyadh that killed 25 people and nine attackers.

The Interior Ministry official did not say when the 16 were arrested.

He said that during the arrests, security forces seized weapons hidden underground that included rocket-propelled grenades, 159 pounds of explosives, detonators, more than 20 tons of chemicals used to make explosives and rifles.

The May 12 bombings triggered a major crackdown on terrorist groups in Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom is the birthplace of al Qaeda leader bin Laden, and home to 15 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Partly because of those ties, Saudi Arabia has been under pressure from the United States to crack down on terror cells and on financial networks that fund them, often via charities.

Saudi authorities have detained at least 125 people since the May 12 attacks in a major sweep that has seen armed police manning checkpoints in major cities, checking identity papers and searching cars.

In early July, Saudi Arabia's most-wanted suspect in the Riyadh bombings died in a fierce shootout with police.

Turki Nasser al-Dandani and his associates were holed up in a house in the town of Suweir, 560 miles northwest of the capital, Riyadh, an Interior Ministry official said. After a five-hour standoff, the suspects ran out of ammunition.

Four suspects, including al-Dandani, were killed; a fifth man gave himself up.

Al-Dandani, an alleged member of the Osama bin Laden al Qaeda terror network, was the No. 1 figure on the wanted list of 19 suspected militants that Saudi police published after the discovery of an arms cache in Riyadh on May 6. The arms were discovered in a raid that ended in a shootout; police were hunting the 19 when the bomb attacks took place.

"He was the most important figure on the list of 19 wanted for the Riyadh attacks. Our investigations showed he was part of the leadership," the Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

The suspected mastermind of the attacks, Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, surrendered in July.

U.S. counterterrorism officials in Washington predicted that al-Ghamdi's arrest would severely hamper al Qaeda's operations in Saudi Arabia, and al-Dandani's death is likely to further diminish the group's capacity.

Last month, police raided an apartment in Mecca where they found members of an alleged terror cell who were allegedly planning to carry out attacks in the city, Islam's holiest.

The May 12 bombing, which killed eight Americans, was followed by a series of coordinated bombings in Casablanca, Morocco. Together, the two incidents contributed to the United States increasing its terror alert level later that month.