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Alqaeda arms traced saudi national guard { May 19 2003 }

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   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5981-2003May18.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5981-2003May18.html

Al Qaeda Arms Traced to Saudi National Guard
3 Attackers Identified In Riyadh Bombings

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 19, 2003; Page A01


RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 18 -- Saudi authorities are investigating suspected illegal arms sales by members of the country's national guard to al Qaeda operatives in the country, U.S. and Saudi officials said.

The weapons were seized in a May 6 raid on an al Qaeda safe house and were traced to national guard stockpiles, the officials said.

The Saudi interior minister said today that officials have identified three of the suicide bombers involved in attacks last week on three residential compounds in Riyadh, which led to the deaths of 34 people, including eight Americans. He said they were part of a group of 19 people wanted in connection with the May 6 raid.

Problems in the Saudi Arabian National Guard are not new, according to the officials, and past audits of its armories have revealed that weapons were missing. But there was no crackdown on the illicit trade largely because of bureaucratic inertia, the officials said.

"This will focus their attention," a U.S. official said.

A small number of officers in the national guard have been involved in illicit gun sales for years, according to the officials, and have sold weapons, including automatic rifles, to anyone willing to pay prices well above their market value. The officials emphasized that the motivation of the officers selling the weapons was money, not ideology, and does not indicate any al Qaeda penetration of a force that is supposed to protect the government.

One Saudi official said the discovery has galvanized the senior Saudi leadership and the national guard itself. One of its officers was shot and killed last week as he tried to fend off suicide bombers who stormed one of the targeted residential compounds in Riyadh.

"People are furious," one Saudi official said.

But a spokesman for the Saudi Foreign Ministry later denied that any national guard weapons had been found at the al Qaeda safe house. He said only Russian-made weapons were found in the raid, adding that the national guard has none in their arsenal.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef said at a press conference today that authorities have arrested four people linked to al Qaeda. The four, detained in the last three days, knew in advance of the attacks but did not participate in them, Nayef and other officials said.

As the investigation continues, Saudi authorities have begun to break down the composition of an al Qaeda group of at least 50 to 60 people in the country, sources said. It is led by Khaled Jehani, who left Saudi Arabia when he was 18, later fought in Bosnia and Chechnya, and had been based at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Jehani, 29, returned to Saudi Arabia through neighboring Yemen after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Saudi officials said.

The officials said they believe the explosives used in the Riyadh bombings were brought into Saudi Arabia through Yemen, which shares a long and porous border with the kingdom.

Officials identified another Saudi veteran of Afghanistan, Turki Mishal Dandani, as the leader of the bombing team. Both Dandani and Jehani are believed to be at large.

Sixty FBI and other U.S. investigators, as well as a team from Britain's Scotland Yard, have joined the investigation, but Saudi officials differed today on the extent of their role. Nayef said the U.S. investigators had come to examine the sites "and we welcomed them based on that -- for examining only."

But Adel Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, spoke more expansively of the U.S. role on Fox News Sunday. The Americans, he said, are "helping us with the investigation. They're providing support to us. They're sharing whatever information they have. They're sharing their expertise."

A U.S. official said cooperation was excellent and involved more than just looking at the bomb sites. The official said U.S. involvement was in sharp contrast to earlier investigations in which visiting FBI agents were shut out. The official said that in the current climate of cooperation he did not rule out the possibility that U.S. officials might be allowed to speak to detainees, something the Saudis have previously refused to allow.

The extent of U.S. involvement here remains sensitive, however, and Nayef, in minimizing the role of the FBI, may want to deflect any domestic criticism.

The U.S. official also said the FBI had improved its "diplomatic skills" since earlier investigations in the kingdom, when they had used "sharp elbows," alienating its hosts on their turf.

The devastating bombs have generated not only revulsion among many Saudis but something once unthinkable, the questioning of the country's strict religious environment and whether it inspires -- intentionally or not -- Islamic-driven violence.

In one illustration of that mood, the religious police, known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, are keeping a low profile on the streets in accordance with a government instruction, Saudi sources said.

Saudi religious police patrol the country, sometimes with sticks, to watch for instances of un-Islamic behavior, such as women not covering their heads.

The absence of the police on the streets may be a temporary measure, however. Nayef said today that he saw no change in the future role of the religious police when asked about their standing after the bombings. He said separating "religion and life" in the kingdom was "unthinkable."

But the prospect of some fundamental reform, including expanding the role of women, has taken on new urgency, despite long-standing claims by religious fundamentalists here that such an agenda was alien and driven by outsiders.

"We will broaden the scope of popular participation and open wide horizons for the work of women within the framework of Islamic teaching," said King Fahd in an address to the country's consultative council Saturday. "As reform is an essential matter, we should never be affected by those who try to fish in the troubled waters by alleging that the attempts at reform are the result of foreign pressure. . . . We cannot sit idle while the world is changing."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company



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