Saudi Arabia Arrests al Qaida Suspects

With all the bad press that Saudi Arabia has been receiving in the past 6 months, 180 lashes for coffee, death sentence for 'witch' and 180 lashes for rape victim, they needed some PR. Saudi Arabia arrests 28 al Qaida terrorists.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Monday it had arrested 28 people suspected of seeking to regroup al Qaeda's wing in the oil-exporting kingdom to carry out a "terror campaign".

The official Saudi Press Agency said those detained were part of a total of 56 suspects arrested in a drive to round up Qaeda members in recent months, and "belonged to the deviant group (al Qaeda) ... and received directions to rebuild the group and start a terror campaign in the kingdom".

The suspects were using a recording from al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri to help raise money from ordinary Saudis, SPA said, citing a source in the ministry of interior.

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"The bearer of this message is one of our trusted brothers, therefore please give him your donations for hundreds of the families of captives and martyrs in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Zawahri said in the audio recording aired by state television.

SPA said the recording was brought into the kingdom via the mobile telephone of a "person who had visited Mecca".

The U.S.-allied Muslim kingdom detained 28 Qaeda militants in Mecca, Madina, Riyadh and an area near the country's northern borders in December.