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Saba Did the Right Thing, Say Many Somayya Jabarti, Arab News Staff   JEDDAH, 19 November 2003 — Out of ruins heroes rise — or heroines.Saba Abu Lisan, a young Saudi woman, rescued seven people, including her two sisters, after the Al-Muhaya Compound bombing in Riyadh on Nov.8 .Wounded and bleeding herself, she transported the victims to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in her father’s Mercedes. Her actions — a conflict between following human instinct and violating Saudi law — stirred a mixture of reactions.“There’s nothing to think about,” said Muhammad Haider, a Saudi father of four, when asked his...

RIYADH, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Taking cover behind desert shrubs, Saudi commandos creep up to a house where suspected militants are holed up. With a burst of gunfire and flash bombs, they storm through doors and windows, clamber over walls and race through the rooms to take control of the gunmen's hideout. Today it's just a training drill. But men from this unit of Saudi Arabia's Special Security Forces, on the front line of the kingdom's battle with an Islamist insurgency, were in action for real two weeks ago when they raided a house in Riyadh and killed a suspected...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia decided Monday to hold its first elections, announcing a vote to create local councils in the conservative Gulf monarchy. The step comes at a time when the Saudi royal family is under pressure to bring democratic reform - especially since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. The Saudi Cabinet said in a statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, that it "has decided to expand the participation of citizens in running local affairs through elections, by empowering the roles of municipal councils." The Cabinet did not say when elections would...

On its newly reactivated website, al-Qaida features a book warning the terrorist network's May attack in Riyadh was the "opening shot" in a jihad campaign against the Arabian Peninsula and its "heretical" regimes. Editor's note: The al-Qaida site may have been shut down again - there was no response shortly after this story was published in WND The book asserts the real ruler over the Muslim countries of the Middle East is "Crusader America," which has subjected Muslim leaders to itself as a district ruler is subject to a king, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research...

Britons who were imprisoned in Saudi Arabia revealed yesterday how they were tortured and beaten into confessing to crimes they did not commit. Weeks after their return to the UK, they shared the horror of their three-year ordeal. Blindfolded, shackled and deprived of sleep, some were whipped with axe handles until they bled. Others were threatened with decapitation or were told that their wives and partners would be raped in front of them if they did not admit responsibility for car bombings in Riyadh. One prisoner - Glen Ballard, 43, from Kent - tried to suffocate himself with a plastic...

September 1, 2003: What Really Happened When Al Qaeda Attacked; The attack on Western style housing compounds in Riyadh on 12 May demonstrated a new chapter in the way Al-Qaeda does business in Saudi Arabia. The timing, forces and methods of attack were different from any previously attempted. Prior to these attacks, there was only one, probably two Al-Qaeda attacks in Saudi. The first attack, in November of 1995 was on a National Guard headquarters in the capital, Riyadh. While variously called an attack on SANG (Saudi Arabian National Guard) Headquarters or the “US trainers” by the media, it was...

Letter from Bin Laden found on body of Saudi bomber By John R Bradley in Jeddah 19 August 2003 A letter from Osama bin Laden and a telephone call made from Iran by his son Saad are linked to a series of al-Qa'ida attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia, according to Western diplomats and Saudi intelligence officials. The letter from al-Qa'ida's leader was found on the body of Yosif Salih Fahd Alayeeri, one of 19 attackers involved in a closely co-ordinated series of bombings in Riyadh in May, who was killed in a shootout with security forces in central Saudi...

<p>JIDDA, Saudi Arabia &#8212; Crown Prince Abdullah said yesterday that the desert kingdom is locked in a "a decisive battle" against the "forces of evil," language that echoed the words of President Bush after the September 11 attacks.</p> <p>"There is no room for neutrality or hesitancy," Prince Abdullah, who is Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, said in remarks carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.</p>

Tragedies of 9/11 and in Riyadh Do Not Represent Saudi People or Islam, According to New Zogby International Poll. Impressions of American Life and Culture Down from 2002 Study -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A new poll of citizens in Saudi Arabia reveals that they reject the international acts of terror claimed by Osama bin Laden as not consistent with the values of the Saudi people, nor with the values of Islam. The survey of 600 Saudi citizens was commissioned by the Arab American Institute of Washington, DC, as part of an on-going study of Saudi attitudes. It was conducted during July, and...

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Two militants killed in a shootout with Saudi police last week were part of a cell of 19 suspected terrorists linked to al-Qaida and thought to be behind the deadly May suicide bombings in Riyadh, a newspaper reported Monday. The Al-Watan daily, quoting "informed sources," identified the men as Ahmed bin Nasser al-Dekhiel and Hamad bin Abdullah al-Aslami. The men were killed during the July 28 raid on a farm in the al-Qassim area, 220 miles northwest of the capital, Riyadh. Four other suspected militants and two police officers also died. The two were on a...

The Associated Press WASHINGTON July 31 — A suspect in the May 12 bombings in Saudi Arabia told interrogators about new plots to hijack planes and use them as weapons, but intelligence officials say he could be lying.Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, whom U.S. counterterrorism officials describe as a leading al-Qaida operative in Saudi Arabia, reported the possible hijacking plot, said one intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The man, also known as Abu Bakr al-Azdi, surrendered to Saudi authorities on June 26.Intelligence officials say they consider his threat credible but do not know if he is...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A high-level al Qaeda operative was one of the sources of information leading to the latest warning about possible suicide hijackings of airliners, a government source told CNN Wednesday.</p> <p>The source said Ali Abd al-Rahman al Faqasi al-Ghamdi -- allegedly one of the key organizers of the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 23 people, including nine Americans -- gave information concerning possible hijackings.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) - The mastermind of the May bombings in Riyadh has been taken into custody in Saudi Arabia, a U.S. official and a source close to the Saudi Embassy in Washington said on Thursday.</p> <p>The Saudi-related source said the suspect, Ali Abdul Rachman Al-Gamdi, also known as Abu Bakr al-Azdi, a senior Saudi-based al Qaeda operative, surrendered to Saudi authorities. But the U.S. official said the man was "captured."</p> <p>"The mastermind of the Saudi bombings has surrendered to Saudi authorities," said the embassy-related source, who asked not to be identified further.</p>

KUWAIT CITY (Agencies): Scores of Kuwaitis, including an Islamic culture instructor at the Saad Al-Abdullah Academy for Security Sciences, were recently rounded up by Saudi authorities in the wake of the Riyadh blasts on May 12, a newspaper reported Sunday. Al-Watan quoted Kuwaiti security sources as saying the Saudi authorities are questioning a number of Kuwaitis on their alleged involvement with al-Qaeda organisation. They said tens of Kuwaitis being interrogated include a Kuwaiti instructor, identified only as M.S., who went missing late last month, and entered Saudi Arabia without an exit record at any Kuwaiti border post. Saudi authorities suspecting...

JEDDAH, 23 June 2003 — The Kingdom is still seeking two main suspects in the triple suicide bombings on Western compounds in Riyadh which killed 35 people last month, Interior Minister Prince Naif said in an interview published yesterday. The authorities have recently intensified a crackdown on suspected militants launched after the bombings in Riyadh, which have been blamed on the Al-Qaeda network. Prince Naif told Okaz newspaper that 44 people had been arrested so far. They include four women arrested in a new raid in Makkah last week amid initial indications that they played a role in the terror...

<p>RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- At least five more suspects have been arrested in relation to last month's Riyadh suicide bombings on Western residential compounds, Saudi Arabia's interior minister said in remarks published Saturday.</p> <p>Prince Nayef told the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh that five people were arrested Thursday, including one who "might have (had) a main role" in the attacks that killed 35 people, including nine suicide bombers.</p>

<p>Saudi Arabia said yesterday that last month's suicide attacks in Riyadh prompted the desert kingdom to crack down on militants, cut off money to charities that fund terrorists and muzzle clerics who defend terrorism and Osama bin Laden.</p> <p>But Adel al-Jubeir, a top adviser to Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, said his nation would continue to aid Palestinian groups, even if some of the money wound up going to the families of suicide bombers or to the political wing of the violently anti-Israel Hamas group.</p>

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, June 3, 2003 If the letter is confirmed as being from bin Laden, it not only would provide evidence the terrorist leader was alive late last year, but that there are ties between the Riyadh bombings and bin Laden's al Qaeda. (CBS/AP) A suspected militant killed by Saudi police last weekend was carrying a 6-month-old letter allegedly written by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi newspaper reported Tuesday. The body of the man identified as Yosif Salih Fahd Ala'yeeri, one of 19 militants wanted for alleged ties to al Qaeda, was searched after he was shot dead following...

<p>TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's foreign minister said Friday that the al-Qaida operatives Iran now has in custody were arrested before the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and couldn't have been involved in the attacks.</p> <p>"There is no possibility that they were able to do any (bombing) operation nor could they lead these kind of military operations," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters at one of several impromptu news conferences he's held recently to counter American accusations that his country is failing to fight terrorism. "When they are in prison all their connections are cut with the outside."</p>

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani authorities are searching for two United Arab Emirates nationals suspected of involvement in the May 12 suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia, an official said Friday. The two suspects are believed to have flown to the southern Pakistani city of Karachi earlier this month after the bombings in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. An official at Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, which enforces immigration laws, said his department had received a letter from the Interior Ministry passing along a request by the United Arab Emirates to find and extradite the men. The official spoke on condition his name...