WASHINGTON, June 1 (UPI) -- FBI Director Robert Mueller is making an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia, carrying thanks for a new spirit of cooperation with U.S. authorities in tracking down those responsible for the May 12 bombings in Riyadh, Time magazine reported Sunday.
Two or three al-Qaida terror cells are still operating in Saudi Arabia, the magazine said, despite at least 11 arrests there.
Relations improved after former FBI Director Louis Freeh made a number of trips to Saudi Arabia, culminating in the June 2001 indictment charging 13 Saudi members of Hezbollah and an unidentified man with complicity in the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996.
That blast killed 19 American military personnel and wounded 372 others. The investigation was initially marked by a lack of cooperation with the United States.
The 2001 indictment charged that an Iranian military officer had directed two of the defendants to conduct surveillance on the Red Sea coast for likely places to attack Americans.
Mueller is visiting Saudi Arabia this week, Time reported, to thank the Saudis for their cooperation and to bolster the momentum of the relationship.
A U.S.-Saudi task force has already conducted more than 400 interviews into the Riyadh bombing and, in contrast to the Khobar Towers probe, U.S. evidence technicians are working closely with Saudi experts to collect and analyze clues, the magazine said.
