Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday arrests of some 208 al-Qaida suspects in groups for planning attacks on security forces and oil installations, state television reported.
An Interior Ministry statement was quoted as saying that the suspects formed six cells, including a cell of 18 militants planning to smuggle eight projectiles into the kingdom and a group that plotted to assassinate clerics and security forces.
Security forces also "foiled an imminent attack on an oil support installation in the Eastern Province after the perpetrators prepared themselves and set a date", according to the report.
The suspects were rounded up in a series of preemptive operations against members of the "deviant" group, official terminology for al-Qaida suspects, said the Interior Ministry.
The ministry charged that among the 208 arrested, more than half were linked to external parties that recruit militants and send them to world troubled regions for fighting and then return Saudi Arabia to "spread sedition and chaos".
Saudi Arabia, an U.S. ally in the Middle East and the world's top oil producer and exporter, has been battling suspected al-Qaida militants since they launched a spate of bombings and shootings in May 2003.
Source: Xinhua
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