Saudi Police Arrest 172 Militants In Anti Terror Sweep UPDATE

Saudi Police Arrest 172 Militants In Anti Terror Sweep

www.msnbc.msn.com

Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel reports the Saudi police have arrested 172 militants and seized caches of arms and money in anti-terror sweep.

Please check back for more details on this developing story.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 27-4-2007 by lombozo]

Just breaking news. I'll update as the details unfold.
172 militants and a cache of arms. Looks like this could really be a story.

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Police have arrested 172 militants who were plotting to attack Saudi Arabia's oil fields, the Saudi state TV channel Al-Ekhbariyah reported Friday.

The channel broadcast footage of the large quantity of weapons of all kinds that were discovered buried in the desert.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour al-Turki told the rival Al-Arabiya channel that the militants included non-Saudis and that one cell planned to storm a prison and release the inmates.

More news - this is looking like it is a major strike!

The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying that more than 120 million riyals ($32.4 million) had been seized in the operation, one of the largest sweeps against terror cells in the kingdoms.

Some of the militant were being trained to fly aircraft, the statement added, raising the specter of more attacks like Sept. 11, 2001 in which terrorists hijacked passenger planes and flew them into buildings in New York and Washington

Al-Ekhbariah showed investigators breaking tiled floors with hammers to uncover pipes that contained weapons. In one scene, an official upends a plastic pipe and bullets and little packets of plastic explosives spill out.
The ministry statement said that one cell had planned to carry out suicide attacks against "public figures, oil facilities, refineries ... and military zones."

This story is getting bigger and bigger.

"They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks," Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour al-Turki told the Associated Press. "They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete except for setting the zero hour for the attacks."

so thats 172 terrorists of the streets
well it is in their intrests (royal family) by keep these people under a leash will mean less hassle for them.

also whats your prospective lombozo you just posted straight from the news source?

[edit on 27-4-2007 by bodrul]

Originally posted by bodrul
so thats 172 terrorists of the streets
well it is in their intrests (royal family) by keep these people under a leash will mean less hassle for them.

also whats your prospective lombozo you just posted straight from the news source?

[edit on 27-4-2007 by bodrul]

My perspective on this is: GREAT! Some of these people were trained to fly. Doesn't take much of an imagination to figure out what that could lead to, eh? Plus an awful lot of money, and a huge weapons cache, not to mention 172 trained terrorists hell bent on their mission of hate. I can only imagine what may have happened if they weren't stopped.

Did they mention how they came across the terrorists?

Undercover agent, informant, tip off, etc.

Also, were they collectively arrested or were they in different locations picked off simultaneously?

So far I haven't seen how they actually came across this group.
I'll update if I find out.

I would bet that these terrorist where more likely to attack a Saudi facility then anything else, thus why Sauds rounded them up.

The saudis don't care to much for Americans.. and they got far more wealthy after 9/11, so unless the threat involved them directly, they would not act, imo.

I just found this regarding how they were caught.

The operation was launched with intelligence gleaned from the interrogations of suspects arrested in the unsuccessful February 2006 strike on an oil processing facility in the desert kingdom, an official told CNN

I agree that the Saudis did this in part because the majority of the attacks were aimed at Saudi interests.
I agree that the Saudis have no love for the US, but i don't know if it would have been different or not if the attacks were planned for Western targets.

The Saudi's and other Arab countries have a habbit of capturing anti-government movements and labelling them terrorists and trying to link them to Al-qeada.

They certainly could have bought up some surplus aircraft with the kind of money they had. It could have been handy for bribing people to get access to closed facilities as well. Kudos to the Saudis for stopping this before it exploded in their faces.

There's going to be ALOT of public beheadings now.

I am in Riyadh right now, and I could tell something was up in the past two days. I noticed the security around the housing compound appeared to be on an increased footing, along with the checkpoint on the way to the airport too.
When I drove into the compound two days ago, I saw Saudi security forces carrying MP5s at the ready right next to my car, when undergoing the bomb check process.

One thing that is possible though, is that with that amount of money and that amount of people involved, there has to be the possibility that they were getting support from somewhere in the royal family.

It is a huge royal family, with thousands of people, dozens if not hundreds of Princes and Sheiks. For there to be one here and there, to have helped organize or finance, is not out of the question