WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- The United States is satisfied with Saudi Arabia's cooperation in the war against terror, a State Department spokesman told reporters Wednesday.
Philip Reeker's comments were in response to the reported arrest Tuesday of seven alleged al Qaida members in the Arab kingdom. Saudi officials said the suspects were planning last month to attack the U.S.-built Prince Sultan air base with rockets and explosives.
"We've been very satisfied and continue to be satisfied with the cooperation with Saudi Arabia in this matter," Reeker said.
"Clearly, arrests, law enforcement actions, along with intelligence sharing and financial actions are all part of the toolbox that we're using in the war against terrorism," said Reeker. He said that such actions were aimed at "rooting out al Qaida and other terrorist groups" and "prevent them from perpetuating the types of activities that we've seen so tragically in the past."
Asked for more information about the arrests in Saudi Arabia, Reeker said only the Saudi government can disclose "specifics in terms of those arrests."
The Saudi government said Tuesday it had arrested several months ago six Saudi nationals and a Sudanese who were planning to use high explosives and two Soviet-made Sam-7 shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles to attack "vital targets in the kingdom."
The official added the Sudanese man had been extradited from Sudan after he and "a colleague ... carried out an unsuccessful Sam-7 missile launch near Prince Sultan military airbase."
U.S. officials said last week Sudan had arrested a suspected al Qaida militant who claimed to have launched such a missile at a U.S. military aircraft in Saudi Arabia.
They said the man was captured recently in Sudan after the burned-out launcher of the SAM-7 was found early in May just outside the airbase at Alkharj, some 40 miles from Riyadh in the Saudi desert.
Sudan said Sunday it had arrested one of its nationals and handed him over to Saudi Arabia on charges of firing a surface-to-air missile near a U.S. military base in the kingdom.
The statement by the Sudanese Interior Ministry said the man belonged to the al Qaida network, led by Osama bin Laden. Washington holds Bin Laden responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Sudanese and Saudi officials agreed that the Sudanese would be tried in Saudi Arabia, the statement said.
The Sudanese, who was not further identified, buried another missile in the desert outside Riyadh before fleeing to Sudan, the Saudi Interior Ministry official said. He was assisted in his flight by five other Saudis and an Iraqi, but apprehended in Sudan and handed over to Riyadh under a bilateral security cooperation agreement.
Saudi intelligence officers were still interrogating the al Qaida members, the official said, and new information about their aborted plans will be revealed at a later stage.
If, as expected, the seven are tried under Shariah, or Islamic law, they risk the penalty of death by decapitation.
In a related development, Israel said Tuesday al Qaida fighters fleeing Afghanistan had established themselves in eastern Lebanon and in Palestinian refugee camps there. Most of them were low-ranking members of the group, a senior Israeli military source said at a briefing for foreign correspondents in the Israeli Foreign Ministry's situation room.
Lebanon denied the report.
"These are all fabrications behind which stand Israel and its intelligence services in an attempt to harm Lebanon," Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said in Beirut Tuesday.
