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| Arabia |
| Interview with Saudi Major General al-Turki |
| 2006-04-20 |
| Major General Mansour Al-Turki talks to Asharq Al-Awsat about current security issues in the kingdom in dealing with terrorism and the media. The transcript of the interview with Al-Turki follows: Q) One year ago, Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz stated that 75% of terrorism had been eliminated from Saudi Arabia. Were you able, practically, to disassemble the infrastructure of terrorism? A) From the seven terrorist attacks that had taken place after the bombing of the residential compounds (the first of the terrorist attacks), we witnessed a change in the capacity of explosives, the tools used and an alteration to simpler weapons. This reflected the incapacity of terrorist movements to provide explosives and weapons as well as the difficulty to load cars with explosives. Instead of these weapons, terrorists resort to knives and light weapons just as they did in the Yanbu district and Abdulaziz Oasis in Khobar. After counter attacks launched by security forces, terrorists resorted to planning the assassinations of some figures. From this change in methods and goals, we understand that terrorist movements were at their peak in terms of numbers, armament and planning. However, this had changed when information about terrorists was collected by security forces, which then lead to the foiling of their plans. Q) Has the arrest of 40 criminals from all over the Kingdom whose names did not feature on the published wanted lists show that other generations of extremists and terrorists are emerging? A) On many occasions, Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz asserted that we are still fighting the war against terrorism. We still expect that further terrorist attacks could take place in Saudi Arabia, as we believe there remain a considerate number of those who believe in extremism. Nevertheless, we could never charge anyone who believes in this line of ideology unless they are involved in terrorist activities. We further expect, however, that a number of them will transform this ideology into practice and it is for this reason that security and precautionary measures are taken. Much, much more: |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 The very picture of the modern major general. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-04-20 06:40 |