Manama: Saudi Arabia’s mufti has called upon all religious figures to deny extremists and fanatics access to the country’s mosques.
“It is the duty of all imams and sermon preachers not to allow the deviants to use the mosques wrongfully or for illegal purposes,” Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al Shaikh said.
Mosques that are suspected of serving as premises for “negative” acts should be shut down, he said.
“We call for shielding young people from deviant ideologies and their sources,” the mufti said, quoted by Saudi Arabic daily Al Madinah on Tuesday. “Deviant groups are puppets used by those who despise the security of this country. They are using them as their soldiers and as a means to carry out their corrupt plans,” he said.
Al Shaikh’s call was issued two days after Saudi Arabia announced that it had arrested a group of suspected Al Qaida-linked militants.
“After intense surveillance of the cell it was revealed that they have reached an advanced stage in their plan to implement their goals, which include preparing and setting explosives and testing them outside Riyadh,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi News Agency (SPA).
The ministry said that it discovered explosive substances and devices at a mosque in Riyadh, the capital, prompting religious scholars and academics to stress the need for the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to beef up monitoring of places of worship, local media reported.
The Saudi authorities on Monday said that its border guard patrols at southern Dhahran sector in the Asir area had “prevented the entry of a number of infiltrators and smugglers”.
“The patrols arrested two men trying to enter from Yemen and seized nine Kalashnikov semi-automatic rifles, one rifle, 79 pistols, 150 gun shots, 980 Kalashnikov shots and nine magazines,” Colonel Abdullah Al Hamrani, the spokesman at the Border Guards Command in the Asir area, said, quoted by SPA.
