Saudi cleric warns Saudis to shun
militants
Thu Jul 3, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL03512642
RIYADH, July 3 (Reuters) -
Saudi Arabia's top religious official warned on Thursday Saudis and foreigners
living in the kingdom to not hide information about militants in the world's
largest oil exporter.
The statement from Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh follows a
government announcement last week that it is holding 520 suspects, arrested
since January, who planned car bomb attacks against oil and security
installations.
"I warn citizens and residents from concealing them and giving them
shelter, this would be a great sin," the statement carried by the official
Saudi Press Agency said.
His comments form part of an ongoing publicity campaign against militant
ideology in the kingdom.
"Aggressions against Muslims and occupation of land ... cannot be a
justification for explosions, denouncing other Muslims as infidels and
disobeying the Muslim social consensus," the government-appointed mufti
said.
"Obeying the Muslim ruler without sedition is as a basic principle of
Muslims who follow the path of the Prophet."
Militants allied to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda began a campaign to destabilise
the U.S.-allied government in 2003 but the violence was brought to an end by
security forces in a counter-insurgency campaign that won plaudits in the West.
The last major attack was a failed attempt to storm the world's largest oil
processing plant at Abqaiq in February 2006.
Since then the government says it has arrested hundreds of suspects, but
analysts say they doubt many were hardcore militants reestablishing al Qaeda.
They say the announcements are partly preventative to remind Saudis to be
vigilant since radical Islamist ideology remains prevalent in society. Many
Saudis have gone to fight in Iraq.
This week state television showed two former militant supporters who confessed
over how they organised the Internet operations of al Qaeda's campaign. (Editing
by Mariam Karouny)
