Military

DATE=06/18/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-291106

TITLE=SAUDI / ARRESTS (L)

BYLINE=GREG LaMOTTE

DATELINE=CAIRO

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Saudi Arabia today (Tuesday) announced the arrest of 13 people for planning terrorist attacks in the country. As VOA's Greg LaMotte reports from our Middle East bureau, the official Saudi Press Agency says seven of the suspects have been linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

TEXT: Saudi Arabia says the suspects -- 11 Saudis and two foreign nationals - were arrested over a period of several months.

The Saudi Press Agency says the seven linked to al-Qaida were planning attacks on key military installations using explosives and two SAM-7 missiles smuggled into the country.

The agency says the six others arrested -- five Saudis and an Iraqi --are accused of helping a Sudanese suspect to flee Saudi Arabia after an attempted missile attack near a Saudi airbase used by U-S forces.

About five-thousand U-S military personnel have been stationed at the air base since the end of the 1991 Gulf War to monitor the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

The ministry said the Sudanese, who returned to Sudan after fleeing Saudi Arabia, was linked directly to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network and had fought in Afghanistan with the network.

Under bilateral security cooperation pacts Sudan extradited the man to Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

The interior ministry says all of the accused will face trial before a Saudi Arabian Islamic court.

The announcement of the arrests by Riyadh follows a denial by Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz that Saudi Arabia hosts inactive al-Qaida cells. "If there were sleeping cells we would have woken them up through various security methods, but, God willing, they are not present," the minister told a Saudi newspaper. (Signed)

NEB/GL/KL/FC