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The arrest of one of the two men suspected of
masterminding the triple suicide bombings in
Riyadh in May is a significant victory in the
fight against terrorism and a major blow to the
Al-Qaeda network. Altogether, some 50 people
suspected of involvement in terrorism, including
four women, are now in custody following a series
of raids by the security forces. Clearly the net
is closing in around the terrorists. Ali Abdul
Rahman Saeed Al-Faqaasi — suspected of being a
leading figure in the terrorist network —
decided to give himself up.
It would be gratifying to believe that
Faqaasi’s surrender was directly linked to last
week’s appeal by Interior Minister Prince Naif
to the public to help root out terrorism — that
he discovered he had nowhere to hide, that
everywhere he went there were eyes watching, ready
to turn him. The battle against terrorism has to
involve everyone. We cannot be passive about this,
thinking that it is the security forces’
problem. It is our problem because it is ordinary
people — people who read this newspaper, who
shop in the supermarket, whom we see in the
streets, in the mosques, in the cafes, at the
beach — who are the victims of these murderous
barbarians.
What his arrest and those of others last week
certainly spell out is that intelligence work is
paying dividends. When last Tuesday, the police
stopped three men in a car on the Makkah-Jeddah
Expressway carrying maps of government
installations, it is impossible to believe that it
was pure chance. The police knew who they were
looking for.
The fact that on the same day two other
suspects were arrested in Abha shows, however, how
widespread this cancer is. But that is no reason
to believe that it will not be eradicated. Hardly
a day passes without another raid, another arrest,
another success notched up against Al-Qaeda.
Eighteen people thought to be linked to Al-Qaeda
have just been extradited to Sudan and eight other
militants are about to be extradited to Yemen.
Last week’s assault by Yemeni forces on
hideouts used by militants in the south of the
country should also be seen in that same wider
picture, all the more so because, if the
authorities are correct in saying that the
explosives for the Riyadh bombings were smuggled
from Yemen, then terrorism in the two countries is
particularly linked.
The fight against extremism is not just a
Western fight, it is a Saudi fight, a Yemeni
fight, a Pakistani fight, an Indonesian fight —
everyone’s fight.
This past week has shown that Saudi Arabia is
just one corner of a global battleground. It is a
fight that will be fought to the finish — but it
will be won.
[Reprinted with permission of Arab
News]
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