* 62 members of the group with links to Syria, Yemen arrested * Plots to assassinate officials, target govt buildings foiled
Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH – Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that it had uncovered terrorist cell with links to extremist elements in Syria and Yemen that had been plotting to assassinate officials and attack government and foreign targets. The cell comprised 62 members, including 59 Saudis, a Yemeni, a Pakistani and a Palestinian, Interior Ministry Spokesman Major General Mansour Al-Turki said in a televised briefing. An investigation into social media postings “led security forces after months of hard work to pinpoint suspicious activities that unveiled a terrorist organization through which the elements in Yemen were communicating with their counterparts in Syria in coordination with a number of misguided (people) at home in various provinces of the Kingdom,” he said. Those arrested include 35 Saudis who had previously been detained on security-related cases and released. The authorities are still hunting down 44 others whose names have been submitted to Interpol, the spokesman said. The security authorities have busted a facility for manufacturing advanced electronic circuits, which are used in explosion, jamming of electronic devices and mobile phones, as well as equipment for forging documents. The spokesman said that a cell engaged in funding this organization has also been unearthed. Members of this cell were found engaged in collecting donations through the Internet and making available huge funds through other sources. Currencies worth a total of SR900,000, including some dollars, have so far been seized from the cell. The bulk of this amount was found hidden in a bag hanging with a rope inside the skylight lighting in one of the residential buildings. The ministry spokesman said that the security authorities were successful in arresting members of the cell from various regions of the Kingdom after closely monitoring their suspicious activities and their contacts with the deviant groups in Yemen and Syria. The security authorities have detected that the busted cell showed utmost keenness in trafficking individuals and weapons across the Kingdom's southern border. It was found that they gave top priority to the trafficking of women and had been successful in trafficking two women –Arwa Baghdadi and Rima Al-Joraish while the security forces had foiled on April 19 the attempt to smuggle two other women –Maya Al-Talaq and Ameena Al-Rashid together with a number of children. The spokesman said that the terror suspects admitted that they had plans to smuggle in weapons prior to the execution of their terrorist operations. The ministry urged those who remain under suspicion of terror related activities to approach the security authorities to explain their real position. “The ministry will continue to follow up such acts and would make further announcements in due course,” the spokesman added. The Interior Ministry in March published a list of terror groups, including Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda's official Syrian affiliate, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, another militant group fighting in Syria and Iraq. It also includes the little-known Saudi Hezbollah Shiite militant group, as well as Shiite Huthi rebels fighting in neighboring Yemen. The ministry has said it will prosecute anyone who back such groups “financially or morally,” or who seeks to promote them in the media and on social networks. It also forbids “participation in, calling for, or incitement to fighting in conflict zones in other countries” as well as calling for demonstrations or taking part in them. After a wave of deadly terror attacks in the Kingdom between 2003 and 2006, Saudi authorities cracked down on the local branch of the group. Members of that group went on to merge with Yemeni militants to form Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
