Terror alerts spread across the globe

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Terror alerts spread across the globe
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia
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Al-Qaida is out to prove it is still a force, US counterterrorism officials
said Friday, suggesting the bombings in Saudi Arabia and terrorist threats
in Africa and Asia are part of a coordinated effort to strike lightly
defended targets.

At this point, those targets do not appear to include places within the
United States, officials said. While acknowledging the network is capable of
US strikes, they said intelligence points toward attacks overseas, where al-
Qaida operatives are more numerous and security measures less effective.

"We have no credible, specific intelligence information that indicates
similar attacks are planned to take place in this country," said Department
of Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. "We will not raise the
threat level at home at this time."

US and British authorities have warned of threats in East Africa,
particularly Kenya, and in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia. And the
group that conducted this week's attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, remains at
large and could strike again.

US officials also have received an unconfirmed report that a possible
terrorist attack may occur in the western Saudi city of Jiddah.

The fear, road blocks and searches familiar anywhere hit by terrorism spread
from the Saudi capital 300 kilometers (190 miles) southwest to Jiddah Friday
after US officials warned Americans of possible attacks in the busy Red Sea
port.

Tamas Braun, a Hungarian who works for a Saudi bank, had flown the 300
kilometers (190 miles) southwest from Riyadh to Jiddah for a diving getaway
after a series of suicide bombings in the capital Monday killed 34 people at
three foreigners' housing compounds.

"It's like going out of the frying pan into the fire," said Braun, who was
returning to Riyadh Friday. "I'm pretty freaked out and I'm seriously
considering whether I should stay here (in Saudi) anymore."

Late Thursday, US officials had announced receiving "an unconfirmed report
that a possible terrorist attack in the Alhamra district of Jiddah may occur
in the near future. US citizens are encouraged to maintain a high level of
vigilance."

The State Department said it could not confirm the credibility of the
threat. But diplomatic families living in Jiddah's Alhamra district were
moving out, according to the warning announcement.

After Monday's attacks an American official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said intelligence "indicated that there was going to be a stream
of attacks, and so we have confidence that has begun."

Braun said he was leaving Jiddah as scheduled, and airport officials,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been no sign of an exodus
from the city Friday. The officials added security had been tightened, but
refused to elaborate other than saying searches of departing passengers and
their baggage had been increased. Security officers at a road block outside
could be seen searching the trunks and checking under the hoods of cars
approaching the airport, particularly those whose passengers appeared to be
Saudi or other Arab.

Elsewhere in the city, though, families strolled the shoreline avenue as
usual, and security did not appear especially tight. That contrasted with
Riyadh, where soldiers and armed guards set up checkpoints, searched cars
and quizzed drivers by the hundreds. Bumper-to-bumper traffic caused by the
security checks stretched for kilometers (miles) in the capital.

The increased vigilance came after US criticism that the Saudis had not done
enough to prevent the al-Qaida-linked suicide bombings Monday that killed
eight Americans, seven Saudis, three Filipinos, two Jordanians, and one each
from Australia, Britain, Ireland, Lebanon and Switzerland. Nine attackers,
all identified as Saudi, also died.

Speaking in Washington Friday, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign policy
adviser to the crown prince, said the government will undertake its own
efforts to bring down al-Qaida.

"We're both in the cross-hairs of this organization. We have never had as
close, or as strong, a cooperative effort between our two countries as we
have now," al-Jubeir said. "Have we failed? Yes. On Monday, we failed. We
will learn from this mistake, we will ensure it never happens again."

FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters in Washington the initial Saudi
probe of the blasts has been "thorough and expeditious," adding that the
FBI's role will be to assist and not take over the investigation.

US law enforcement officials say the FBI needs far better access to
witnesses and evidence in the Saudi Arabia terror bombings than they got
after the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers dormitory. Saudi and US
authorities insisted cooperation will be better as an FBI team in Saudi
Arabia began assessing how many agents and forensic experts will be needed
for a full-scale investigation in support of Saudi efforts. It may be next
week before additional FBI teams are summoned to Riyadh, as US authorities
seek to tread lightly on Saudi soil.

Saudi officials have been quick to reassure their American partners of
cooperation after Monday's attacks and have shown determination in public
announcements to squarely face the role played by homegrown Islamic
militancy.

Saudi Islamic clerics, who are carefully guided by their government, widely
condemned the attacks at Friday prayers. Sheik Saleh bin Abdullah bin
Humaid, head of the consultative council, who delivered the sermon at the
Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia's holiest city, described the
perpetrators as "saboteurs who aim at the high trees to bring down the best
fruits."

"This act is aggression, murder, terrorism and destruction. It is the
killing of life and the spilling of innocent blood. It is a cheap path, a
crime motivated by misdirected thoughts and crooked principles," bin Humaid
said.

The imam of a run-down mosque in Oraija, one of poorest districts in Riyadh,
also spoke out. Sheik Yousef al-Aamer, who conducted the prayers at the Amir
Saad bin Mohammed Mosque, said the bombings were against the teachings of
Islam.

"Those who conducted these acts are nonbelievers. They have attacked Muslims
who are their own people and people of other faiths who are innocent and
could not defend themselves. Hell fire awaits them," he said.

The clerics, appointed by the government and numbering about 100,000
nationwide, were following the official line after hundreds of them were
fired for extremist sermons.

Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network plays on religious
sentiment, vowing to rid Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, of any
Western influence.

Saudi officials have faced past criticism for doing too little to combat
militancy ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, which also were blamed on
al-Qaida. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaida "has always had the Saudi government in their sights," said Alex
Standish, the editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest in London.

Targeting foreigners working in the kingdom in Monday's attacks amounts
to "economic sabotage," he added. "They are plotting the downfall of the
Saudi royal family."

Saudi Arabia is home to 6 million expatriate workers, including about 35,000
Americans and 30,000 Britons, many of whom work in the oil, defense and
medical industries.

Monday's strikes also may have targeted the Saudi government. Two of the
residential compounds hit housed employees of the Saudi National Guard,
headed by Crown Prince Abdullah, and air force workers in the Defense
Ministry, which is led by Prince Sultan. Both are brothers of King Fahd. The
third complex is owned by the deput