RIYADH - Three al-Qaida suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia this week planned to hijack a plane from the southwestern port city of Jiddah, Saudi security officials said, in what appeared to be a plot for a suicide attack. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the three men arrested Monday in Jiddah were Moroccans but offered few other details. Nawaf Obaid, a private Saudi oil security analyst with close contacts to the Saudi government, said the three were part of a larger cell that was "in the process of carrying out suicide attacks against landmarks in the kingdom."
I'm trying to figure the significance of Moroccans. It's not like they have to import jihadis...
Saudi security officials said the three suspects intended to hijack a Sudan-bound flight, but did not say if there was any plot to use the plane as a missile. The Moroccans were arrested amid a sweep following three suicide attacks in the Saudi capital Riyadh that killed 34 people on May 12. It was unclear whether investigators believe the three men were connected to the Riyadh bombings.
I'm wondering if they're connected to the bunch that did the Casablanca bombings — that would indicate Salafi Jihad has intentions of playing its own part on the international terror stage, independent of or in harmony with Qaeda. Cheeze. You really can't tell the players without a scorecard...
A Saudi official said on condition of anonymity Tuesday that investigators were aware of about 50 militants, some now dead, believed to belong to three Saudi cells, including the one that carried out the May 12 bombings. Another cell has fled Saudi Arabia and the third is at large in the kingdom. The official indicated the surviving militants were ready to volunteer for more suicide strikes, were tied to al-Qaida and had hard-core sympathizers numbering "in the low hundreds."
That's comforting. And I wonder where the one cell beat it for?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2003 11:25 am ||
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#1
Given the Saudi habit of arresting random people and torturing them to obtain "confessions" I wouldn't put too much trust in their self-reported scorecard.
#2
OT : from what was written & said during the few last days, Morocco has adopted a rigid stance against islamonuts since the mid 90's (thanks to the Algerian example); one of the UBL's bodyguard was supposeddly a mole, and Morocco was among the countries that warned the USA of an upcoming large attack during 2001 summer; in may 2002, saudi nationals were arrested in Morocco while planning a USS Cole type boat attack, and it was revealed that during the hadj, in feb. 2003, 7 AQ members were prevented by saudi security from kidnapping a large group of moroccan pilgrims in order to secure an exchange. Basically, this country is definitively an apostate in the eyes of the Righteous True Believers.
Court of Cassation, presided by Judge Qazem Al-Mazeedi, Tuesday set June 17, 2003, to issue a sentence in the appeal filed by Mohamed Abdullah Al-Dousari, the main convict in the 'sabotage ring case', sentenced to seven years by the Appeals Court after it reduced a 10-year sentence by the Criminal Court.
Al-Dousari was convicted of possessing explosives, arms and ammunition with the aim of carrying out illegal activities against the State of Kuwait. Case papers indicate Al-Dousari and 15 other men - Mohamed H. Al-Ajmi, Saud Al-Ajmi, Mishal Al-Shimmari, Talib Al-Felaij, Badi Cruz, Mohamed D. Al-Ajmi, Mohamed M. Al-Otaibi, Shafi Al-Ajmi, Fehaid Al-Ajmi, Tariq Abdullah, Mohamed Q. Al-Shimmari, Nabeel Al-Oun, Mohamed A. Al-Otaibi, Mohamed S. Al-Ajmi and Majed Al-Harbi, had planned to blow the Israeli Trade Office (I.T.O.) in Qatar in 2001.
Dousari was charged with carrying out hostile actions against a neighbouring country, Qatar, by planning to blow the I.T.O., with the help of other suspects. On Dec 4, 2001, the Appeals Court amended the verdict of the Criminal Court for seven other men in the case who were acquitted by the Criminal Court. The Appeals Court refrained from passing a verdict but released them on a KD 5,000 bail and ordered them to sign a pledge of good conduct for two years.
Some of the men were charged with stealing weapons and explosives from their workplaces at the ministries of Interior and Defence. Two of the defendants, who are police officers, are charged with aiding and facilitating the escape of one of the men to leave Kuwait before he was arrested. Members of the alleged sabotage ring were arrested and huge quantities of TNT and PE4 explosives, guns, Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) were seized from them.
On my first reading, I thought "they sprung them?" Then I read it a second time: even though they were acquitted, the appeals court still imposed conditions for their release. I had my suspicions for awhile, but I think Kuwait has decided that it doesn't need a bunch of jihadis running around blowing things up.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2003 10:17 am ||
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KUWAIT CITY: The Court of Appeals Tuesday denied a request by Khaled Messier Al-Shimmari's lawyer, Nawaf Sari Al-Mutairi, to refer his client to the nut house Psychiatric Hospital until a decision is taken in the case and ordered his continued detention in police custody. The court then adjourned the session to June 2, 2003, to summon doctors of the Psychiatric Hospital who have prepared a report on the psychological state of Al-Shimmari, a Kuwait police officer who shot and injured two American soldiers, Master Sergeant Larry Thomas and Sergeant Charles Ellis last November. On March 5, 2003, the Criminal Court sentenced Al-Shimmari to 15 years — 10 years for attempted murder and possession of an unlicensed gun and ammunition and 5 years for taking an official weapon from his workplace without permission. The court also ordered his dismissal from work and fined him KD 316.
Kuwait doesn't seem to be screwing around with these goobers...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/21/2003 10:11 am ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
