Saudi police discover huge al Qaeda weapons cache
Dubai: Saudi police have discovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition including 281 Kalashnikov assault rifles belonging to al Qaeda terror network buried in a vacant house in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The weapons were found buried in a vacant house under a concrete slab, in Thadeq Governorate, 150 km north of Riyadh, Interior Ministry Spokesman Maj Gen Mansour Al-Turki was quoted as saying by the Saudi Press Agency.
"The security authorities do not make arrests unless they have precise information and evidence indicating involvement in criminal or terrorist activities," he said.
The arms haul comprised 281 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 250 magazines and 35 cases containing 41,250 rounds of ammunition, he said.
The spokesman said police learned about the cache after investigating a group of al Qaeda suspects arrested in August.
Police are searching for the owners of the house whom they suspects of having links with al Qaeda, he added.
The investigations are still under way with the arrested suspects to find out the source of the weapons and how they entered the country, Al-Turki said.
Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda terror group is a Saudi, has called for attacks on the kingdom's oil facilities as a means of crippling both the kingdom's economy and the hurting the West.
Saudi Arabia has witnessed a series of assassinations and bombings between 2003 and 2006 that killed more than 150 Saudis and foreigners in the Kingdom, followed by a sweeping roundup of some 9,000 terror suspects.
Bureau Report