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| Terror Networks |
| Riyadh admits al-Qaeda presence |
| 2002-06-20 |
| Riyadh has grudgingly admitted that al-Qaeda is active inside the kingdom after a series of disclosures from Washington to Casablanca made it nigh impossible to continue burying the Saudi connection. You mean they lied? There must be some mistake... Since the Sept 11 suicide hijackings in the United States, Saudi Arabia had repeatedly claimed that al-Qaeda posed no threat to the kingdom's security. Even yesterday's belated official announcement that a group linked to al-Qaeda was arrested for planning to attack key installations stressed the roles of non-Saudis, notably a Sudanese and an Iraqi. Two out of thirteen. That's pretty significant, I guess... And Saudi newspapers were today quick to defend the kingdom against charges of hosting terrorists. The arrests "confirmed that the kingdom's war on terror is ongoing ... " Ofergawdsake! Sudan called and said to come take them before they dropped them in the ocean or gave them to the Merkins... "Those in the West who hastened to point fingers at Saudi Arabia after the September 11 attacks in the United States should ... have the courage to apologise to this peaceloving country," Al-Madina wrote Wednesday. (Snrngk!) May I have a tissue, please? "Indicting (an entire) country because a handful of its citizens were dragged into error is a crime ... especially when this country is the cradle of Islam and the land of the two holy shrines," the paper said. "Indicting an entire country because a handful of its citizens and its government and its religious heirarchy and its dogs, chickens and camels initiated the 'errors' and then tried to drag the entire world into them, and then hides behind a pair of shrines..." Fifteen of the 19 presumed September 11 hijackers carried Saudi passports, and Osama, accused by Washington of masterminding the attacks, is the scion of one of the kingdom's most prominent families, though he was stripped of his citizenship in 1994. Ummm... We did notice that... Only two days before the announcement of the arrests, Saudi Arabia's security supremo was busy denying the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom. "If there were sleeping (al-Qaeda) cells we would have woken them up through various security methods, but, God willing, they are not present," Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz told Sunday's Okaz daily. Made him look like some sort of beast of burden, didn't it? Or maybe an orifice. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |