Saudis arrest 172 in terror plot

AP/CNN:

Police have arrested 172 militants who were plotting to attack Saudi Arabia's oil fields, storm its prisons to free the inmates and use aircraft in their attacks, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Friday.

The militants planned to carry out suicide attacks against "public figures, oil facilities, refineries ... and military zones." The statement said some of the military targets were outside the kingdom, but it did not elaborate.

Some of the militants were being trained to fly aircraft in their attacks, the statement added, raising the specter of more attacks like September 11, 2001 in which terrorists hijacked passenger planes and flew them into buildings in New York and Washington.

The Saudi state TV channel Al-Ekhbariah broadcast footage of a large quantity of weapons discovered buried in the desert. The arms included brickettes of plastic explosives, ammunition cartridges, handguns and rifles wrapped in plastic sheeting.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour al-Turki told the privately owned Al-Arabiya TV channel that the militants included non-Saudis and that one cell planned to storm a prison and release the inmates.

...

Al-Ekhbariah showed investigators breaking tiled floors with hammers to uncover pipes that contained weapons. In one scene, an official upends a plastic pipe and bullets and little packets of plastic explosives spill out.

The channel also showed investigators digging up plastic sacks in the desert.

...
You might say the plot was deeply embedded. The Saudis also recovered more than $32 million that was to be used to finance the plot. It appears the enemy went to extraordinary lengths to hide its activity and the Saudis still uncovered it. That is good work by their intelligence service. It is a blow to the enemy, but it is not a fatal one. They will keep trying and keep getting finance for the efforts.

Wretchard discusses the dilemma of rooting for the Saudi success, which is not as great as teh dilemma of the terrorist.

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