RIYADH, 2 November 2004 — Three people have been arrested since the beginning of Ramadan in the ongoing clampdown on Al-Qaeda sympathizers in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabian Television reported yesterday that the number included two people arrested in the last two weeks.

The announcement came hours after the Interior Ministry said security forces had arrested an Al-Qaeda terrorist in pre-dawn raids in Riyadh and seized a large cache of weapons that included explosives, hand grenades, guns and live ammunition from a terrorist hide-out in the city.

Interior Ministry Brig. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki denied earlier reports of a terror suspect being arrested on Riyadh-Kharj Road along with seven persons he had in the back of his pickup truck.

News of people being arrested in the past two days who are wanted terror suspects is not accurate. One of the two arrested was a Saudi who used to smuggle overstayers from one place to another. The persons arrested with him were workers violating the labor law.”

Regarding the alleged arrest of a terrorist dressed up as a Saudi woman, the spokesman said that the person arrested was not a terrorist, but was in fact a foreigner who was residing legally in the Kingdom.

The man wished to perform Umrah in Makkah, but a compatriot told him that the conditions were tough and persuaded him to go along with him in his car disguised as a woman wearing an abaya.

Al-Turki said that negligence of the Kingdom’s law has led them to act foolishly which resulted in their arrests. He added that the conditions for performing Umrah for foreigners were not complicated and that the men should have obtained the necessary legal papers that are easily available.

On Saturday the ministry denied rumors of a car bomb being prepared by terrorists to carry out a major terrorist attack in the Kingdom. Al-Turki said such rumors were “baseless”. He also said that the presence of large number of security trucks and police cars in the capital over the past two weeks was routine procedure.