They rent cars and houses using stolen IDs. They disguise themselves as women or as hip young men.
| Especially women. It's the underwear. They can't resist them... |
The money they raise for Iraqi prisoners in U.S. jails funds terror operations. This, Saudi officials say, is the kind of information being gleaned from scores of Saudi militants arrested in an aggressive government campaign. Two suspects have appeared on television to talk about life underground, telling of injured comrades who die from lack of medical care, supposedly devout Muslims who don't bother praying the mandatory five prayers, and uneducated youths who consider Saudis in uniform to be infidels. Such information has enabled the kingdom to strike at the root of al-Qaida's Saudi infrastructure, kill or capture several of its leaders, and publicly portray it in a humiliating light.
But no one is willing to declare the network dead or paralyzed, and foreigners know the successes do not mean they should let their guard down. The U.S. Embassy continues to warn Americans that they face a "serious threat to their safety while in Saudi Arabia" and that credible information indicates terrorists "continue to target residential compounds" in the kingdom. The warnings came after a particularly violent period in which a compound and two oil companies were attacked in the Eastern Province, several Westerners were killed in Riyadh and an American hostage, Paul Johnson, was beheaded. "It's not in our security interest to assume they cannot carry out a large operation," said Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, the Interior Ministry spokesman. "If we assume they can't, it would have an adverse effect on our alertness and level of preparedness to confront them." |