Saudi authorities have discovered an arms cache near the capital linked to an Al-Qaeda cell dismantled in August, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Sunday. The Saudi Press Agency quoted Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki as saying the weapons were found buried in a vacant house under a concrete slab, in Thadeq Governorate, 150 km north of Riyadh, after interrogations of 44 people allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda whose arrests were announced on Aug. 19. Al-Turki said the authorities are searching for the owners of the house whom they suspect of having links with Al-Qaeda. “The security authorities do not make arrests unless they have precise information and evidence indicating involvement in criminal or terrorist activities,” he said. The arms haul comprised 281 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 250 magazines and 35 cases containing 41,250 rounds of ammunition, the spokesman said. The investigations are still under way with the arrested suspects to find out the source of the weapons and how they entered the country, Al-Turki said. When 43 Saudis and one foreigner were arrested in August, the authorities also seized around 70 machine guns, 376 electronic detonation devices and more than 31,000 rounds of ammunition in three caches in a Riyadh residence and desert hideouts. “These people have links to the original Al-Qaeda organization,” Al-Turki said in August. “I would describe them like a base. They actually work in the area, recruiting young people, giving them the ideology of Al-Qaeda and financing terrorism in the Kingdom.” The Ministry of Interior statement on Sunday described the dismantled terrorist cell as “dangerous” as its members are believed to be true advocates and leaders of terrorism with a camouflage ability that would have allowed them to spread their deviant ideology, misguide the youth, and penetrate charity work to finance terrorist activities. The spokesman said that 20 of the arrested terror suspects hold undergraduate and graduate degrees, pointing out that some of them received training at militant camps inside the Kingdom and abroad. A bloody Al-Qaeda campaign of assassinations and bombings between 2003 and 2006 killed more than 150 Saudis and foreigners in the Kingdom, and was followed by a sweeping roundup of some 9,000 terror suspects.
