Saudi Arabia arrested 44 people with alleged close links to the "original" Al-Qaeda leadership and seized large amounts of arms and explosives meant for attacks in the kingdom, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.
The 43 Saudis and one foreigner were "a core" of Qaeda operatives that was recruiting and indoctrinating others to carry out attacks, interior ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki told AFP.
"These people have links to the original Al-Qaeda organisation," Turki said.
"I would describe them like a base. They actually work in the area, recruiting young people, giving young people the ideology of Al-Qaeda and financing terrorism in the kingdom," he added.
Turki said those arrested were plotting attacks that would be carried out by others.
"These people do have a plan, but they don't themselves directly execute the plans," he said.
In a statement on state news agency SPA, Turki said the group "includes a number of the theorists and believers of the deviant ideology and supporters of its criminal acts."
Police seized around 70 machineguns, 376 electronic detonation devices and more than 31,000 rounds of ammunition in three caches in a Riyadh residence and desert hideouts near Riyadh and in the Qassim region north of the capital, the ministry said.
Some members of the group had received arms and explosives training both abroad and inside the kingdom, the birthplace of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the ministry added.
They were "highly qualified" and had "advanced technical expertise," with skills in weaponry, bomb preparation, and falsifying documents, it said.
The interior ministry is still investigating what the intended targets of the group were.
Besides having links to the "original" Qaeda organisation -- suggesting Bin Laden and his followers believed hiding in northwestern Pakistan -- those arrest had direct ties to now-dead leaders of the bloody 2003-2006 Qaeda campaign of attacks inside Saudi Arabi, Turki said.
That campaign of assaults, assassinations and bombings left more than 150 Saudis and foreigners dead, and was followed by a sweeping roundup of some 9,000 suspected Islamic dissidents by the interior ministry.
By some estimates more than 3,000 are still being held, and nearly 1,000 have been charged with terror-related offences.
Turki also said that none of the 44 were on a list of 85 wanted men with links to Al-Qaeda or other radical Islamic groups that was sent to Interpol early this year.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
