The Saudi security forces have thwarted a terror plot to attack vital oil installations in the Eastern Province, said a senior security official. He said that two terrorist cells comprising 11 Saudis and a Yemeni were planning attacks on Ras Tanura, 70km north of Dammam, and the residential compound of its employees. Two security stations, including the headquarters of the Special Emergency Forces, were also on the terrorists' hit list. The official said that crack down on terrorists was in full swing across the Kingdom. And, he added, the forces are promptly acting on all available information. He said that the forces have also seized seven machine guns from an area in the Nufud Desert in Qassim on Wednesday. =He said that a terror plot to attack oil installations in the Eastern Province was not the first of its kind as the Kingdom's forces had earlier foiled similar attempts a number of times. The official said that the terrorists were also planning attack on the intelligence headquarters in Khafji in 2008 through a cell code-named the “Oil Cell”. “That Oil Cell was one of five cells dismantled by the security forces in 2008 during which 520 terrorists were arrested.” He said that the members of that cell detained by the Kingdom included seven Mauritanians. All of them, he added, were university graduates. He said that one of them –holding Masters' degree- had entered the Kingdom with a driver visa so as to freely move in the Kingdom. The official admitted that Al-Qaeda in Yemen through its operatives in the Kingdom was devising plans to launch a series of attacks on the Kingdom's vital oil installations in the Eastern Province especially during the time when the Kingdom's forces were fighting infiltrators in the border region. But the vigilant Saudi security forces thwarted the organization's evil plots, he said. He said that it came as a surprise to the forces that a Bangladeshi national was part of one of recently dismantled terrorist cells. During the past few years, the security forces have foiled a number of attempts made by the Al-Qaeda to terrorize the Eastern Province. A number of terrorists either got killed by the Saudi forces or fled to Yemen, he said. He said that some of those foiled attempts included an attack led by four armed terrorists on May 27, 2004 against the Abdul Aziz Oasis Compound in Khobr. In September 2005, he said, the Eastern Province had witnessed fierce clashes between the security forces and Al- Qaeda elements. On Feb 24, 2005 the organization failed to explode oil refineries in Abgaig.
