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? |
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