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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scoobah who wrote (8267)	12/7/2004 11:24:56 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 32591

Al-Qaeda's Saudi Arm Was Behind U.S. Consulate Attack (Update1) Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Saudi Arabian branch of al-Qaeda said it carried out the attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Red Sea port of Jeddah that left eight people dead. A statement posted on an Islamist Web site said the attackers yesterday stormed the consulate, ``one of the bastions of the crusaders in the Arabian Peninsula,'' and referred to Fallujah, the Iraqi city captured by U.S.-led forces from insurgents last month. The statement, which can't be authenticated, was signed by al-Qaeda's Saudi arm. The attack in Jeddah may have been a reaction to the Saudi crackdown on suspected terrorists, which ``probably made the militants want to show they're still a force to be reckoned with,'' said Kevin Rosser, Middle East analyst at Control Risks Group, a London-based risk-forecasting company. At least 43 foreigners have been killed in the kingdom since May 1 when al-Qaeda-linked militants stepped up violence against the Saudi government and its allies. Saudi forces have increased operations to curb the attacks and have made about 1,000 arrests, said Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi Ambassador to Britain in an interview with Sky News. Militants have targeted Western business people including an Irish engineer shot dead in his Riyadh office in August and American hostage Paul Johnson Jr., a Lockheed Martin Corp. engineer, who was beheaded in June. Foreign Companies Almost a fifth of people working for foreign companies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and six other Arab countries surveyed by HSBC Holdings Plc said last month they've moved staff since June on concern of terrorist attacks. The U.S. is sending ``special agents'' to boost security at the mission in Jeddah and other cities, according to Andrew Mitchell, spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh. The embassy and the consulate in Dhahran, on Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf coast, are closed today for a second day. Control Risks Group isn't advising its clients to leave Saudi, Rosser said. ``The Saudi effort is having an impact,'' he said. ``You'll start to see attacks getting less sophisticated. Large-scale attacks are possible though and small-scale attacks are inevitable.'' The siege at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second-largest city, left five non-Americans employees and three of the gunmen dead, U.S. and Saudi officials said. A fourth militant died later of his wounds, the Associated Press said. Al-Qaeda Cell ``The manner in which it was carried out suggests the country's al-Qaeda cell might have launched a new campaign and further attacks are in the offing,'' said Sajjan Gohel, an expert in international terrorism at the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, in a telephone interview. Saud bin Hamoud al-Otaibi, one of the 26 most-wanted terror suspects in Saudi Arabia was identified as the new chief of ``al- Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula'' in an al-Qaeda-linked online magazine on Nov. 2. An audiotape on that site purported to have been made by al-Otaibi called on Saudi militants to fight U.S. troops in Iraq and step up assaults against Americans. ``Speculation falls on Otaibi as having orchestrated the latest terrorist attack,'' Gohel said. The Abu Annas al-Shami brigade carried out yesterday's raid, coded named ``Fallujah attack,'' according to the statement posted on the Internet. Al-Shami, who was killed in a U.S. air strike in Iraq in September, was the spiritual mentor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who leads al-Qaeda in Iraq. The references to Iraq may be a sign that the situation there may be encouraging militants in other countries. -- With reporting by James Cordahi in Dubai. Editor: B. O'Connell