Saudi authorities yesterday sought elusive Al-Qaeda killers who kidnapped a US national after Washington said that the kingdom was facing a grave threat.
The kingdom has appeared powerless to halt a wave of attacks which have seen three Westerners killed in a week and a US national kidnapped in the capital.
PHOTO: AP
Security forces are tracking the militants, but since three of four men who left a trail of bodies behind at the end of May escaped with official blessing, they have repeatedly been outwitted.
The security failures were picked up in Washington, where strong comments were aired suggesting the Saudi regime's survival was in danger.
"The Saudis know that this is an enemy that is coming after them. The killing of foreigners, whether they're Americans or Brits or what are they, is a direct attack against the Saudi regime," Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
"The Saudis now know that they have a very serious problem within the kingdom, and they know that it's going to require all their resources, not only their military and police resources," he said. "I am satisfied with what they have done so far," he said, then added, "I think there is more that they can do."
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice also spoke out about the determination of al-Qaeda to strike at Saudi Arabia.
But comments from senators were the most cutting.
"I think it's a very dangerous situation for Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure they're equipped to handle it," said Senator John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee.
"I don't think psychologically over their 70-year history they've been equipped to handle this kind of attack. So I worry a lot about their future."
Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the committee's Republican chairman, said: "If they were doing everything they should be doing, they wouldn't have the problem. The terrorists understand that if they attack the oil infrastructure, that really presents a problem for the United States."
Six prominent religious figures on Monday strongly condemned the attacks against non-Muslims.
On June 4, Saudi Arabia's highest Muslim authority issued a religious edict calling on both citizens and expatriates to inform on suspected Islamist extremists.
The United States has urged Americans to leave the country and has allowed nonessential diplomatic staff and their families to go elsewhere.
Statements posted on Islamist websites in the name of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's terror network took responsibility for Saturday's murder of a US national and first reported a case of kidnapping of "an American, a Christian, Paul M. Johnson Jr., born in 1955 and working as an aeronautics engineer."
Okaz newspaper reported yesterday that a syringe had been found at the kidnapping site, suggesting that Johnson had been drugged.
On Tuesday, another American who worked for Vinnell Corp, which helps train the Saudi National Guard, was killed at his home in Riyadh.
One Islamist website posted grisly video footage, attributed to an Al-Qaeda cell, claiming responsibility and describing the victim as "American Jew Robert Jacobs, who worked for the spy group Vinnell."
It shows the body of a Western-dressed man hitting the ground as some 10 gunshots ring out and one of two assailants appears to slit the victim's throat.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS