Author: Niles Lathem
Publication: New York Post
Date: May 22, 2003
Saudi security agents thwarted a
Sept. 11-style plot, arresting three Moroccan extremists who had planned
to hijack a jetliner and crash it into the national bank in Jeddah, it
was revealed yesterday.
The arrests came as a chilling new
audio tape from Osama bin Laden's second-in-command surfaced, urging Muslims
to intensify attacks on U.S. and Western interests and promising the coming
days would bring "good news."
"Consider your 19 brothers who attacked
America in Washington and New York with their planes as an example," the
man identified as Ayman Al-Zawahiri said in the tape broadcast on the Al-Jazeera
TV news network.
"Oh, Muslims, take your decision
against the embassies of America, England, Australia and Norway. Turn the
earth under their feet into fire," Zawahiri added.
The United States is on full-scale
alert for the possibility of a new wave of terror attacks from the al Qaeda
network, which according to intelligence officials, has stepped up its
activities throughout the world in a desperate attempt to prove to the
world that it is still a potent force.
Saudi officials gave conflicting
accounts of the latest arrests. But according to several reports from Saudi
security officials, the three Moroccan men arrested at the Jeddah airport
Monday were armed with knives and carried written last testaments. They
were busted after they fumbled routine questions about whether they were
traveling together as they tried to board a flight to Sudan.
Saudi officials would not identify
the men arrested.
