Saudi hunt for Al Qaeda uncovers arsenal
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- The Saudi government's vigorous pursuit of Al Qaeda has exposed a nationwide terrorist arsenal that specialists say is being fortified by a steady supply of illegal arms pouring across the kingdom's borders.
Saudi authorities are confident their six-month assault has Al Qaeda on the run, but stockpiles of arms and explosives uncovered in the investigations show that the terrorists have been able to assemble immense destructive force.
US authorities, concerned about Al Qaeda's continuing ability to launch attacks in Saudi Arabia, toughened their security warning in the kingdom Saturday, ordering diplomats to remain inside diplomatic quarters for all but essential duties.
There was no word on whether the new warning was in response to specific information. But the it was given as Saudi authorities continue to turn up evidence of a sophisticated and heavily armed terrorist network.
Many of the weapons cross the border from Yemen, where Saudi authorities say they disrupt smuggling attempts hourly. A just-released report by the United Nations warns that the region is "awash in weapons" readily available to terrorist groups.
Over the last six months, beginning with the first of two devastating terrorist attacks in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, authorities have uncovered surface-to-air missiles, belts of explosives for suicide bombers, rocket-propelled grenades, hundreds of Soviet-era rifles, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Captured laptop computers and surveillance cameras show a an aptitude for technology. Wigs, fake identification, and spray-painting equipment for concealing suicide vehicles demonstrated the terrorists' adeptness at disguise. And the discovery of booby-traps in copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, signaled a willingness to strike at fellow Muslims.
Authorities have repeatedly found evidence that Al Qaeda's scattered cells in Saudi Arabia may be armed with surface-to-air missiles. In August, Saudi officials reportedly confiscated a truck with such missiles near the port city of Jeddah. Authorities recently found a Soviet-made SA-7 missile when they arrested a suspect in connection with the Nov. 8 bombing of the Muhaya residential compound in Riyadh.
The discovery of the shoulder-fired missiles stirred ominous memories of a threat by Osama bin Laden in 1998, when the Saudi-born Al Qaeda leader said in an interview that he was willing to use surface-to-air missiles against American interests in his native country.
"Can the America government explain to its people when a SAM missile is launched against a passenger military jet with 250 soldiers aboard?" he said to ABC's John Miller.
Pointing out the Saudi government had earlier seized a number of missiles, the Al Qaeda leader told Miller: "What the Saudi Arabian government captured is much less than what was not captured."
In May of 2002, a Sudanese suspect using an SA-7 missile allegedly tried to shoot down a US combat aircraft taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh. American pilots used the base to patrol Iraqi airspace until the United States withdrew its troops from Saudi Arabia after the latest Iraq war.
The missile appeared to be from the same batch used in an unsuccessful attempt to bring down an Israeli airliner near Mombasa, Kenya, a UN report released Dec. 1 said.
Specialists say the most dependable source of weapons lies to the south, in Yemen.
"There is a worldwide network of gray- and black-market arms merchants, and they sell to individuals, to groups, and to governments," said Pat Lang of Alexandria, Va., a former high-level official with the US Defense Intelligence Agency. "Once you plug into that network, you can get anything you want, any time you want."
The authors of the UN report said officials in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and adjacent Arab countries acknowledged that "their borders were being crossed in both directions by smugglers, trafficking in all sorts of contraband, including weapons."
Yemeni, UN, and Saudi officials said some of the weapons and explosives used in the suicide bombings in Riyadh "had been smuggled across their 1,100-mile common border," the report said.
The Arab News, a newspaper published in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, reported that 1.2 millions rounds of ammunition and 46,000 sticks of dynamite have been seized from smugglers from Yemen in the past several months.
Other presumed shipment points include Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. The continued instability in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is also thought to be fanning a potential smuggling source on Saudi Arabia's northern border.
