Saudi Arabia has passed onto the Interpol the names of 18 of its most wanted terror suspects and asked it to trace them, a senior security official said. Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, official spokesman of the Interior Ministry, said the ministry had published the list of wanted terror suspects outside the Kingdom. âItâs an alert to all countries that these men are wanted by the Saudi government for security reasons and also a notice to the ports of those countries to arrest them upon identification and hand them over to Saudi authorities,â said Al-Turki. âThis is not new. Details of individuals wanted for security reasons are passed onto the Interpol,â he pointed out.Maj. Gen. Ali Al-Obaishi, a senior Saudi security official said in Berlin that the suspects, many believed to be living outside Saudi Arabia, were notified to Interpol last week. âWe provided about 18 names,â said Obaishi, who heads the Saudi national bureau of Interpol. âWe have a big suspicion that most of them are outside Saudi Arabia,â he said, without naming any country.
Interior Minister Prince Naif was quoted by newspapers this month as complaining the Kingdom had not received enough international cooperation in its crackdown on militants. Saudi Arabia has been battling a two-year wave of attacks by Al-Qaeda militants. Officials say they have broken up militant cells and supply lines inside the country but that more attacks are possible, particularly if Saudis fighting in the Iraqi insurgency bring their battle back home.
A Saudi security source said the Kingdom had been looking for greater help from Syria, Yemen, Iran and Iraq in tracing or arresting the suspects. It had also sought assistance from Mauritania, where one man is believed to have fled. But he said it had had little response from these countries. Obaishi, speaking at Interpolâs annual conference in Berlin this week, echoed Prince Naifâs frustration over the lack of help, saying some countries were not implementing Interpol âred noticesâ filed by Saudi Arabia. Red notices are worldwide requests to arrest suspects with a view to extradition. âWe ask Interpol to work harder to encourage other countries. Some countries donât take good care of red notices,â Obaishi said. âIf we want someone and we know heâs in country A, and that country does nothing, itâs very frustrating for us.â
Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble acknowledged that lack of cooperation in implementing red notices was an issue, but said it was a sovereign decision for each member country whether to make arrests on the basis of the notices.