Riyadh: Prominent Saudi security analysts noted that the huge cache of arms unearthed by Saudi security officials at a rest house near Riyadh is a clear proof of Al Qaeda’s change of tactics in hitting Saudi Arabia again. After receiving severe setbacks in the Kingdom following a successful crackdown and pre-emptive strikes by security forces, Al Qaeda is now mainly concentrating on targeting key Saudi figures rather than hitting major security installations.
“These weapons could have been smuggled in to the Kingdom on various occasions and then assembled at the rest house,” they said adding that they were aimed at using for planned assassinations of prominent Saudi officials,” the analysts said.
An Interior Ministry statement on Sunday revealed about the discovery of an arms cache near the capital linked to an Al Qaeda cell dismantled in August.
The weapons were found buried under a concrete slab in a vacant rest house (Istiraha), owned by a terrorist, in Thadeq region in Riyadh Province. The seizure follows interrogations of 44 people allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda whose arrests were announced in August. The arms haul comprised 281 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 250 magazines and 35 cases containing 41,250 rounds of ammunition, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman of the ministry of interior said.
Naif Al Shamri, a noted Saudi security analyst, said that Al Qaeda is now taking advantage of the turbulent situation in the Kingdom’s neighboring country of Yemen, where the security forces are waging a three-month long war on the Zaidi Shiite Houti rebels. “The seized weapons are sufficient for three or four small gangs to carry out terror strikes against senior Saudi civilian and security officials or media persons.
All these arms are in the category of light weapons that can be used only for assassinations and cannot be used for major attacks targeting security installations and buildings,” he said.
According to Naif Al Shamri, Al Qaeda, now reorganized in Yemen under the name of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is plotting fresh attacks in the Kingdom. They want to take revenge on the Kingdom by targeting key figures and thus undermining the security and stability of the Kingdom, which was successful in foiling several terror plots in the recent past, he said.
On his part, Dr. Ali Al Atiyyah, a prominent Saudi researcher in security affairs, said that Al Qaeda, based in Yemen, has been striving to carry out at least one successful terror strike in the Kingdom. They now concentrate on carrying out suicide missions targeting key Saudi figures.
“The arms cache in Riyadh showed that all these weapons were brought in to be used by such individual bombers,” he said. Dr. Al Atiyyah also noted that this change of tactics is based on the instructions given by a hardcore terrorist Faris Ahmad Al Zahrani in his book.
