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Saudi authorities increase pressure on Al-Qaeda
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| 01 June 2004 |
By Sean Boyne
Only one Al-Qaeda cell remains operational in Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence and current ambassador to the UK, told JIR in May.
He said that there had been five active Al-Qaeda cells in Saudi Arabia in recent years but four have now been broken up: "There remains only one cell - even now it is in the process of being dismantled."
The Saudis believe the cell is led by Abd al-Aziz al-Miqrin. Recent reports from Saudi Arabia suggest that al-Miqrin and a small group of followers were under considerable pressure at the end of April, and were believed to be lying low in a remote area north of Riyadh, with little food. "All the indications are that al-Miqrin is somewhere in the area of Riyadh," the prince told JIR.
Al-Miqrin is on the Saudi Interior Ministry's list of most wanted suspects issued last December. Saudi officials believe he was the mastermind behind the truck-bomb attack on the Al-Muhayya residential compound in Riyadh in November 2003, which killed 17 people. He is believed to have taken over as the local Al-Qaeda leader from Khalid bin Ali Hajj, who was shot dead by police in Riyadh on 15 March 2004.
A statement purporting to come from al-Miqrin indicates that his organisation is in close touch with Iraqi Islamists from the Ansar al-Islam group who are believed to be targeting Coalition forces in Iraq. While the statement issued in May did not refer by name to Ansar al-Islam and did not outline the precise nature of the contacts, it would appear that this was the group that was being specified, because of a reference to the mujahideen having previously been located in [Iraqi] Kurdistan.
The May statement lends support to the belief of Coalition forces that the group reorganised and became active again in the post-war insurgency. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard B Myers, named Ansar al-Islam last year as one of the major threats to the US mission in Iraq.
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