Al-Qaeda attacks on military bases foiled, AL-QAEDA terrorists suspected of plotting spectacular suicide attacks using hijacked aircraft against western military bases in the Gulf were foiled by a huge security sweep by Saudi forces yesterday. The kingdom's police arrested 172 terrorist suspects, seized large quantities of weapons and netted more than $30 million in cash from the conspirators.


The ambitious plot that was thwarted bore chilling echoes to the 11 September attacks. Most of those hijackers were Saudi-born.

Saudi officials said some of the terrorists had taken advantage of the chaos in neighbouring Iraq to train - reinforcing fears among western intelligence officials that the war-torn country is spawning a new generation of deadly and battle-hardened terrorists.

"One of their main targets was to carry out suicide attacks against public figures and oil installations and to target military bases inside and outside [the country]," the Saudi interior ministry said in a statement.

It added: "Some had begun training on the use of weapons, and some were sent to other countries to study aviation in preparation to use them to carry out terrorist operations inside the country."

Any airborne terror attack from the oil-rich kingdom would put British warships in the Gulf at risk as well as the 7,100 British forces in the nearby southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, of the US, also makes a major target for a terrorist spectacular.

Al-Qaeda has long called for attacks on key Saudi oil installations to undermine the kingdom's economy and hit western energy supplies.

Suicide car-bombers in February last year targeted the world's biggest oil processing plant at the heavily-fortified Abqaiq facility in the country's eastern province.

They rammed the facility's outer gates but were killed by specialised units of the Army and National Guard well before they reached the heart of the complex.

Virtually impenetrable security measures are in place at all the kingdom's key oil installations now, making a suicide air attack the only way to inflict damage.

Saudi Arabia - home to 25,000 British expatriates - suffered its own 9/11 in May 2003 when al-Qaeda suicide bombers attacked three western compounds in the capital Riyadh.

Terrorists committed to overthrowing the western-backed Saudi monarchy went on to kill some 144 foreigners and Saudis over the next few years.

But since those first attacks, Saudi security forces have hit back with great determination, breaking the back of the al-Qaeda threat by killing scores of terrorists and arresting hundreds more.

Al-Qaeda also miscalculated badly by killing Saudi officials - leading to a backlash by the Saudi public which has provided invaluable tip-offs.

"It's fair to say the Saudis get huge intelligence from the public - far greater than in most western countries," a British security consultant in Riyadh told The Scotsman.