Saudis talk al-Qaeda for the first time

Some of the militants arrested in a terror sweep in Saudi Arabia are trained to use civilian aircraft in suicide miss ions, a Saudi interior ministry spokesman said on Saturday.

“They were trained on civilian aircrafts, to use the aircraft as a tool to carry out suicide operations,” said Mansour al-Turkri. “The last group (we) rounded up are carriers of al-Qaeda ideology, working on achieving al-Qaeda goals, which is to take over the society.”

The comment s mark a rare mention of al-Qaeda by Saudi officials, who customarily refer to the organisation as a “deviant group”.

In another statement, interior minister Prince Nayef said the arrest of 172 suspected militants did not end the al-Qaeda threat in Saudi Arabia.