May 20, 2005

THE FBI'S DIRECTOR, INDICATES THAT TRAVEL WARNINGS TO SAUDI ARABIA HAVE BEEN TONED DOWN IN THE WAKE OF SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS MADE BY THE KINGDOM IN DISABLING AL-QAEDA. THE PAKISTANI PRESIDENT CONFIRMS THAT THE ARREST OF AL-LIBBI HAS LED TO THE ARREST OF TERRORISTS IN THE UAE AND SAUDI ARABIA. YEMEN STATE'S PROSECUTION UNVEILS A PLOT BY AL-TAWHID BRIGADES TO COMMIT A SERIES OF ASSASSINATIONS. A BRITISH SOURCE: ABOU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI WOUNDED AND TREATED IN AN IRAQI HOSPITAL. The United States has dropped a year-old warning it issued to its citizens to leave Saudi Arabia but said that they should still "defer non-essential" travel to the Kingdom because of security concerns and possible terrorist attacks. The language used in the current advisory notice differs significantly from that of the April 2004 advisory, which said: "The Department of State warns US citizens to defer travel to Saudi Arabia. Private American citizens currently in Saudi Arabia are strongly urged to depart." Robert Mueller, FBI director, in his May 12 press conference in the Saudi capital indicated that the travel warning had been toned down in the wake of significant progress made by the Kingdom in disabling Al-Qaeda over the last few months. Andrew Mitchell, press attache at the US Embassy, confirmed that "the new travel warning of the US Department of State has been issued and is posted also on the embassy's website," but Mitchell did not elaborate. Asked about any specific reason to issue the travel warning now, another US Embassy official Bob Keith said the travel advisory "is regularly reviewed by the US officials and subsequently upgraded or renewed on the basis of concerns." The new warning has been issued at a time when there is a marked growth in the tourist and business traffic between the US and Saudi Arabia. It also coincides with the visit of a huge Saudi delegation to the US. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation had denied reports that Saudi students in the US were grilled by security agents in their homes and deprived of access to legal aid. Replying to a question from Arab News, FBI Director Robert Mueller denied that there were any such cases. The FBI chief was addressing a press conference at the Riyadh Air Base following his audience with Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister and Commander of the National Guard. Mueller said the US travel advisory concerning the Kingdom might be reviewed in the wake of significant progress in disabling Al-Qaeda over the last few months. However, he insisted that the terrorist threat was real and that no country was immune to terrorism. Mueller said he and the crown prince had discussed joint measures taken by their countries to combat terrorism in the Kingdom, the Middle East and around the world. "We also discussed the exchange of terrorists' fingerprints and also better ways of identifying those who have crossed borders," he said, stressing the need for speedy exchange of information on terrorists. On the question of US visas for Saudis, he said the issuance of visas is being streamlined to minimize inconvenience. He pointed out, however, that there have been cases in which "the persons were interviewed. But they are isolated." The FBI chief's statements seemed to contradict an earlier report published in Arab News (July 12, 2004) according to which Saudi students spoke of shocking treatment at the hands of FBI. They complained of discrimination once they had identified themselves as Saudis. Ibrahim Al-Toeimi, a finance and banking student at the University of Tampa in Florida, told Arab News the FBI conducted random searches of his home once or twice a month. "They came and knocked on my door any day at any time. On one occasion, they came to house at 8 on a Sunday morning." Without warrants, the FBI searched Al-Toeimi's apartment thoroughly. The FBI chief paid tributes to the Saudi security forces for their crackdown on terrorists. Mueller attributed the success in the war on terror to the ongoing cooperation between the two countries. "We understand that addressing terrorists is not just the function of one agency or the function of a single country. It is a necessity for every civilized nation in the world today." Mueller reserved his special thanks for the Saudi people who, he said, understand that the killing of innocent men, women and children serves no legitimate purpose. He called on them to extend their continued cooperation to the security forces who have made significant progress in the war on terror. On the other hand Security forces arrested a suspected militant following a siege in Buraidah in the Qasim area. The suspect, who had fled into a residential area in Al-Muwatta District in Buraidah, was caught after an hour-long standoff. He is now being questioned by the police. The drama began when the unidentified gunman fired at a police patrol after being told to stop. The gunman fled on foot as the police gave chase. "The gunman escaped, leaving behind his vehicle," Ministry of Interior spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki said. Police sealed off the district and waited out the gunman while ensuring the safety of the residents. In early April, Qasim witnessed a standoff that lasted nearly three days. Security forces fought a pitched battle with terrorists, killing 14 and arresting a number of them in Al-Rass, 300 km north of Riyadh. In Yemen State prosecution submitted to a Sana'a court evidence against eight men suspected of plotting attacks against Western targets in Yemen. In the session, prosecutor Saeed al-Aaqil said a document found in a computer belonged to the main defendant Anwar al-Jilani showed a plan by the so-called "Al-Tawhid Brigades" to launch attacks against Western interests in Yemen, Gulf states, European countries and the United States as well as plots to assassinate top Yemeni officials. Other evidence was five checks by name of seventh defendant Salah Mohammed Othman, which the prosecutor said Othamn wrote them to unknown parts. The prosecutor also offered a document from the Thamod Gas Company that al-Jilani received a sum of SR 10,000 transferred by a Yemeni expatriate in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. Other documents said the third defendant Abdul-Rahman Ba-Surrah rented a car from the al-Safeer Agency to use it for taking photos for the British and Italian embassies and French culture center. The court ordered the prosecutor to allow defence lawyers get a copy of all documents presented as evidence. The alleged Al-Qaeda No. 3 Abu Al-Faraj Al-Libbi has confessed to masterminding two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to derail his peace moves with India, a report said. Libbi, who was arrested two weeks ago in Mardan, told his interrogators that he worked with a group of Pakistani militants belonging to different jehadi groups to carry out suicide bombings against Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December 2003, The News said, quoting sources privy to the investigations. The first bomb went off after Musharraf's cavalcade passed over a bridge. The president narrowly escaped the second attempt on Christmas Day, in which 17 people, including the two bombers, were killed. One bomber was identified as Muhammad Jameel of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group that is active in India's Jammu and Kashmir and the other was said to be an Afghan. "Preliminary investigation suggests that Libbi's motive was specifically to target Musharraf, whose initiatives were aimed at uprooting extremism from Pakistan and bringing peace with India," The News said. "Though it is difficult to glean information from a trained militant like Libbi, he is cooperating with the interrogators," it quoted an official as saying. "He has accepted the responsibility for planning the attacks on Musharraf and has even given some important leads as well about his contacts with various jehadis," the official said. "We have got some invaluable information during the interrogation that could lead us to bust the network or nexus of splinter groups of local jehadi groups which are believed to have links with Al-Qaeda," the official added. Following Libbi's capture, 24 local militants have been rounded up from different parts of the country, including from Islamabad and Peshawar, and more arrests are expected. However, it is yet to be ascertained whether the attempts on Musharraf's life were Libbi's brainchild or came on orders from Osama Bin Laden or his deputy, Aiyman-Al Zawahiri. Libbi, a 40-year-old Libyan, exploited the anger of local jehadis who were upset with Musharraf's ban on Kashmiri groups. He had also met Amjad Farooqi, who headed the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and was killed last year after a gun battle with security forces. Farooqi introduced Libbi to several local militants who agreed to be part of assassination plots against Musharraf, the newspaper said. Libbi and his group of militants also carried out sectarian attacks, especially in Quetta, in which dozens of people were killed in a series of bombings in July 2003. The group spread rumors that India and Iran were behind the attacks. This was meant to create unrest in Pakistan and to harm Musharraf's peace initiatives, The News said. It was not difficult for Libbi to make contact with local militants as he had spent nearly 18 years in Pakistan, mostly in the tribal region, after staying back in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. He married a Pakistani woman and could speak Urdu, Arabic and Pushto. He used to move freely in Pakistan and before 9/11, was a frequent visitor to Afghanistan, where he was trained in camps run by Arab militants, the report said. Meanwhile Pakistan has denied a media report that an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft had killed an al-Qaida operative near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. ABC News in the United States on Friday quoted intelligence sources as saying that senior al-Qaida operative Haitham al-Yemeni was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft. The CIA has declined to comment on the report. But Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Aljazeera that no such incident took place on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. "I have heard some news agencies reporting that Haitham al-Yemeni has been killed in Pakistan's border areas. However, as an official Pakistani spokesman, I deny this. "No such thing has happened on Pakistani soil. What matters to Pakistan is that no one has been killed here, even if something has happened in Kabul or somewhere else." Also, a spokeswoman for the US military in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Cindy Moore, said forces from the US-led coalition in Afghanistan were not involved in such an incident, but she could not say whether it had taken place. Pakistan which became an important ally of the United States in its war on terror after the 11 September 2001 attacks in America, earlier this month arrested Abu Faraj al-Libbi, reputed to be al-Qaida's number three leader. ABC News reported that with the capture of al-Libbi, officials decided to strike at al-Yemeni rather than risk him going into hiding. In London a report published by the Sunday Times confirmed that Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been seriously wounded, according to a doctor who claims to have treated him last week. The doctor told an Iraqi reporter in the western city of Ramadi that Zarqawi was bleeding heavily when he was brought into hospital on Wednesday. After treating his wounds the doctor tried to persuade him to remain, but the Jordanian-born terrorist's minders drove him away. The claim was supported by a senior commander in the Iraqi resistance who had been to Ramadi to investigate the report. The doctor, who refused to specify the nature of the wounds and asked not to be identified, was detained by the Americans on Friday for questioning, residents said. Zarqawi, described as Osama Bin Laden's "emir" in Iraq, is the Americans' top target. He has been blamed for countless suicide bombings and for the execution of western hostages, including Ken Bigley, the Liverpool engineer. There is a £13m bounty on his head. Last week US forces launched an offensive near al-Qaim, more than 100 miles northwest of the city, and claimed to have killed scores of insurgents. According to the doctor, Zarqawi was escorted into Ramadi general hospital by smartly dressed men. "He was bleeding heavily and his escorts were well dressed with a look about them that was different from the casualties and family members we had been receiving from the al-Qaim offensive," he was quoted as saying. "I treated his injury and asked that he remain in hospital for further observations and told him that we would have to register him and take down his name and details. But he became very nervous and agitated. He refused and told me he would not be staying. "The three men with him asked me politely that he be allowed to leave hospital immediately and that I supply them with a prescription and a list of medication that he may need." The doctor, who recognised Zarqawi from his photograph on television, followed them to their vehicle to try to convince them that the patient should remain in hospital. At that point, he said, he saw machineguns. They threatened to kill him if he told anyone what he had seen. They then produced a wad of US dollars to secure his silence. The doctor said that he had refused to take the cash. U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley says he can not confirm reports that terror leader Musab al-Zarqawi has been seriously wounded in Iraq. But Mr. Hadley told U.S. television that Zarqawi heads a lethal network and his death would lead to a significant difference in the level of violence in Iraq. His comments came after London's Sunday Times quoted an Iraqi doctor who says he treated Zarqawi at a hospital in Ramadi. The Times report says the doctor was debriefed by U.S. authorities. The doctor said the terrorist was bleeding heavily when treated and left despite recommendations that he remain under hospital care. The U.S. military ended a week-long offensive against insurgents holed up near the border town of al-Qaim. Authorities said nine Marines and 125 insurgents were killed in the fighting. Kuwait has stepped up security around its oil installations, ports, airport and embassies in response to "circumstances in the area," the Interior Ministry said. There were no specific threats made, a ministry official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. "Circumstances in the area make it necessary to follow up all developments and react to them," he said declining to elaborate. The official denied unsourced reports in the local press that terrorist threats were made against the country's Shuwaikh commercial port, just west of the capital. Similar measures were taken early this year, just before Kuwait's toughest confrontations yet with militants who allegedly planned to attack Western civilians living in Kuwait and members of the US military here. Kuwait's state security apparatus was also a target, according to authorities. In January, police clashed with members of the group, killing eight suspects and four policemen. The group did not carry out any of its alleged plans. Around 35 suspects have been investigated by prosecutors, but it was not clear if they have been referred to courts. The terror group included Kuwaitis, Jordanians and stateless Arabs who have lived in the emirate for decades without becoming citizens. The increased security in Kuwait came days after a Yemeni prosecutor accused eight suspected members of Al-Qaeda terror organization of plotting to carry out attacks in six Arab states, including Kuwait. At their trial for plotting to attack foreign embassies in Yemen, the prosecutor presented documents that alleged they planned to target Western interests in the region. It was announced in Beirut that one of the Lebanese security department leaders, the Lebanese opposition asked for their resignation, was put under the disposal of the army leadership. Identical sources said that the chairman of the monitoring unit in the army intelligence Col. Ghassan al-Tufeili was put under the disposal of his leadership in preparation for his resignation, noting the possibility of appointing col. Sasin Mur'b instead of him. Al-Tufeili is one of 6 Lebanese security departments leaders the Lebanese opposition called on to resign two months ago over the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri on February 14. Four of the said leaders, in addition to the attorney general Adnan Adoum, gave their resignation by the end of May with the exception of lt. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, the leader of the republican guard who is close to President Emile Lahoud. It is expected that removing the leaders of the security forces who were accused of collaborating in the assassination of al-Hariri will facilitate the work of the international investigation committee whose numbers are expected to reach Beirut within days. The Jordanian authorities said they have broken up an alleged al Qaeda plot that would have unleashed a deadly cloud of chemicals in the heart of Jordan's capital, Amman. The plot would have been more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, according to the Jordanian government. Among the alleged targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence.