Saudis arrest 28 over plans to rebuild Al Qaida terror network

Riyadh : Saudi police have arrested 28 militants of different nationalities who had been ordered by the Al Qaida to rebuild the network in the kingdom and start a terror campaign in Saudi Arabia, an Interior Ministry statement said on Monday.

The statement said that police had found a letter from Ayman Al Zawahri, Al Qaida's No. 2 leader, on the memory card of a mobile phone of the men urging the militants to collect money for needy families in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It said the man received the memory card from another person who had arrived from abroad to Makkah.

The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, quoted the letter as saying that the bearer of the message was "a trusted brother".

"Please give him your cash donations to the families of prisoners ... in Pakistan and Afghanistan,"' said the letter, according to SPA.

The statement said the militants' preparations had "reached an advanced stage," and they included attempts to find hideouts for their cells, forging travel documents and launching a media campaign through the Internet to spread their "deviant ideology".

They also included recruiting young men and sending them to "other regions and involving them in actions that undermine security in order to harm their nation and compatriots."

Last December, the government announced the arrest of 28 other men for allegedly planning to attack sites around Makkah and Madinah during the annual Haj.

Last April, one of the largest sweeps by Saudi authorities netted 172 militants, including pilots allegedly trained to carry out attacks on oil refineries using civilian planes.

The latest arrests indicate that Al Qaida and other extremists are still actively attempting to destabilise the government. The kingdom has been waging a heavy crackdown on the militants since a 2003 wave of attacks on foreigners here.