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New '9/11' attack planned
21/05/2003 21:13 - (SA)
Riyadh - Saudi security forces have arrested three Moroccan members of the al-Qaeda terror network who were planning to carry out a suicide attack with a hijacked passenger plane, a Saudi security source said on Wednesday.
"The three men were apprehended late on Monday just before boarding a Saudi Airlines flight to Khartoum, Sudan at Jeddah Airport," the source said.
The men had planned to hijack the plane and crash it into a building in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second largest city and economic hub, the source said.
Morocco's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Abdul Karim al-Sammar, was not able to confirm the arrests. "I have received no information about the arrest of any Moroccan in Saudi Arabia," Sammar said. At least one of the three men arrested was on the most wanted list of the Saudi security agencies, separate from 19 members of an al-Qaeda cell uncovered in Riyadh on May 6, according to the security source.
"They are three Moroccans. They are not connected with the cell of 19. The embassy's aware they have been arrested," a US embassy spokesperson said. Triple blasts
The arrests came a week after a triple suicide bomb blast killed 34 people in the Saudi capital, and followed warnings by top Saudi officials, London and Washington that a new attack by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was imminent.
Al-Qaeda was blamed for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States in which suicide hijackers slammed planes into New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon outside Washington.
Several Western embassies were ordered shut on Wednesday over security concerns of fresh attacks.
The US and British embassies said on Tuesday they had received credible information that further terrorist attacks against "unspecified targets" in Saudi Arabia were being planned and could take place imminently.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz on Sunday announced the arrest of four al-Qaeda members in connection with the triple car bombings in Riyadh, but said they were not among the perpetrators.
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