Al Qaeda warns of attacks on Western airlines
By Samia Nakhoul
RIYADH (Reuters) – A statement purportedly from al Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia has warned of new attacks on U.S. and Western airlines, as a Saudi diplomat said the militant group was behind an attack that killed a BBC cameraman.
“All compounds, bases and means of transport, especially Western and American airlines, will be a direct target for our coming operations in the near future,” said the statement, posted on a pro-al Qaeda site on the Internet.
It asked Muslims to keep away from Americans and other Westerners to avoid falling victim to an attack by the Islamic militant network led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.
Saudi forces hunted on Monday for gunmen who shot dead Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers, 36, and critically wounded BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, 42 in a Riyadh area known as a militant stronghold.
Sunday’s attack, the fourth in five weeks on Westerners in a kingdom battling al Qaeda militants, heightened security fears among the tens of thousands of expatriates in the world’s largest oil exporter.
“We also warn security forces and guards of Crusader (Western) compounds and American bases and all those who stand with America, its agents…and the tyrants of the Saudi government, and urge them to repent,” said the statement, signed by al Qaeda’s Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula.
The BBC said Gardner, who suffered wounds mainly to the abdomen, was in a stable condition after extensive surgery overnight.
AL QAEDA SEEN BEHIND ATTACK ON BBC TEAM
“It is the same fanatical group. They are linked to al Qaeda,” Jamal Khashoggi, the media adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador in London, told Reuters, referring to a recent string of attacks.
“It was an easy job for these militants because they had spent some time in the area. I believe it was an opportunistic strike,” Khashoggi said. “These militants want to send a message that the kingdom is not safe for Westerners.”
The attack came a week after al Qaeda militants killed 22 people, 19 of them foreigners, in a shooting and hostage-taking spree in the oil city of Khobar. The assault helped push oil prices to record highs before producers vowed to raise output.
British Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles also said the BBC team, who were with a Saudi information ministry guide, appeared to be victims of an opportunist rather than organised attack.
“Westerners operating in this area of Riyadh with a camera would obviously be vulnerable,” he told the BBC, adding there was a “serious and chronic terrorist threat” in Saudi Arabia.
Khashoggi said police, who have so far avoided a large-scale crackdown, will now take tougher measures on militants.
“Citizens should have a bigger role… in warning against falling into the trap of covering up or keeping silent,” King Fahd told a cabinet meeting, according to the SPA news agency.
Riyadh’s Suweidi district is a stronghold of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda followers and 15 of the 26 most wanted militants in the kingdom, including the leader of the group in Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, come from there.
In London Prince Turki, the kingdom’s former intelligence chief, said militants were going after individuals and soft targets because of a security clampdown.
Saudi Arabia has been battling al Qaeda for more than a year, and security forces have arrested or clashed with many suspected militants in Suweidi in recent months.
Bin Laden is blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities and his followers have vowed to drive Western “infidels” from the birthplace of Islam.
The British embassy has advised its 30,000 nationals against non-essential travel to the kingdom. Some 35,000 Americans live in Saudi Arabia and last month Washington urged them to leave.
At least 80 civilians and police have been killed since May last year in a string of al Qaeda suicide bombings and attacks. Police have killed or arrested nine top militants.
By: EAL_KING - 7th June 2004 at 23:15
‘Al-Qaeda’ threat to US airlines
Saudi Arabia is has problems with domestic Islamist militants
A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia has warned of new attacks on US and Western airlines and other transport facilities.
“All compounds, bases and means of transport, especially Western and American airlines, will be a direct target,” it said.
Posted on an pro-al-Qaeda website, it asks Muslims to keep away from Westerners and such locations.
The statement’s authenticity could not be immediately verified.
Hostage siege
But it was signed “al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula”.
Attacks on a residential compound in Khobar at the end of May brought to the fore the major domestic problem Saudi Arabia faces with Islamist militants
Twenty-two civilians were killed – including an American, a Briton and an Italian – during the attack which saw Saudi commandos storm the compound.
The latest warning also comes as Saudi security forces hunt gunmen who attacked a BBC news team in a drive-by shooting in Riyadh on Sunday.
The specific threat to airlines will alarm an industry that has put a renewed emphasis on counter-terrorism security since the 11 September suicide hijackings in the US.
‘All guns blazing’
Another bloody attack in Saudi Arabia would mean another massive blow to international confidence in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom.
Thousands of foreigners from Asia and the west work in the Saudi oil industry.
But Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador to Britain, on Monday defended the way his country was dealing with the threat from al-Qaeda, in an interview with the BBC.
Saudi Arabia was taking the threat from al-Qaeda seriously, but some of the country’s operations against the group had been successful, and “some not so successful”.
But he said Saudi Arabia was not going to “go in all guns blazing” and arrest thousands of people.
“That is precisely what the terrorists want us to do – to antagonise the population,” he said.
“There is a more methodical way of doing things – police work, investigations, co-operating with other agencies and other countries,” he added.
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June 7, 2004 at 11:12 pm