Al-Qaeda is going after Mecca, this is other than the evil thing which does permeate the planet.
Al-Qaeda is planning to infiltrate Saudi Arabia and the United States has plans to invade Saudi Arabia.
Apparently al-Qaeda is using Sudan as at least one entry point into Saudi.
They are moving pretty easily from their base points to the Red Sea coast, and then back and forth to Saudi. The Saudis are pretty annoyed about it.
The United States has raised the prospect of a military invasion of Saudi Arabia including a 300,000 US military force. 10,000 troops could capture eastern Saudi Arabia, which contains virtually all of the kingdom's oil wells. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10704051/
Excerpt, somewhat dated, but you get the picture. American special forces teams have been sent to Sudan to hunt down Saudi Arabian terrorists who have re-established secret al-Qa'eda training camps in remote mountain ranges in the north-eastern quarter of the country.
The terrorists, who are thought to take orders from Saudi Arabia's most wanted man, Saleh Awfi, have taken refuge in at least three locations in the Jebel Kurush mountains, which run parallel to the Red Sea coast of Africa's biggest country.
An American Delta Force officer, who recently spent a week in Sudan tracking the terrorists, said the camps are used to train new recruits to wage jihad, or holy war, against the West and its allies. The trainees are instructed how to handle weapons and build and transport bombs.
The officer said it was proving difficult to pin the terrorists down. 'We have a read on the rat-lines and the wider camp areas, but these are shifting camps in a very spread out part of the country. Our job is to tie them down tighter and tighter. They are moving pretty easily from their base points to the Red Sea coast, and then back and forth to Saudi. The Saudis are pretty annoyed about it.'
Awfi, according to the Saudi Arabian government, is a former prison officer and a veteran of al-Qa'eda training camps in Sudan in the early 1990s. He is believed to have moved on to Afghanistan before turning up in Iraq before the war last year. Now back in his homeland, he emerged as the local al-Qa'eda leader earlier this summer. Riyadh has launched a nationwide crackdown on terrorist cells after an amnesty expired last month but Awfi has evaded capture, even though he is believed to live in a safe house in the Riyadh area.
Western diplomats in Saudi Arabia said that the new Sudanese camps, which were established in the last nine months, have become a vital staging ground for al-Qa'eda. 'There is significant traffic from these camps to the peninsula across the Red Sea,' one said. 'There is no real Sudanese government or army control over the mountains. The terrorists slip through the cracks, up into the hills where they can train, rest and build up the spirit of jihad. With things getting hot over here, they can get organised over there.'
Al-Qa'eda had its headquarters in Sudan between 1992 and 1996 until Khartoum's Islamic regime succumbed to western pressure to expel the group and Osama bin Laden fled to Afghanistan. Two years later President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on al-Qa'eda camps in Sudan and Afghanistan.
Sudan has resisted western and Saudi Arabian pressure for it to deploy an army battalion in the Jebel Kurush, to flush out the al-Qa'eda presence. It has, however, allowed small teams of American soldiers to pass into the country as part of official visits, such as last month's trip by Colin Powell. A team of five special forces soldiers broke off from the Powell entourage for a week-long mission in the Kurush mountains, where aerial surveillance had established a list of villages where suspicious activity had been detected. #msg-3701895 www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2004/08/01/wsudan01.gif
One reason Saudi is considering fortifying their border with Iraq could be the al-Qaeda element in Iraq.
A similar situation exists in the Middle East, where al-Qaeda now has a base in Iraq and can conveniently shuttle between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Unlike in the past when some al-Qaeda-linked groups carried out random attacks, al-Qaeda now has ample time and space to draw up concerted plans to infiltrate Saudi Arabia in its struggle against the Saudi monarchy. #msg-10813182
Apparently concerned that fighting in Iraq could spill over into this oil-rich kingdom, Saudi Arabia is considering a major fortification of its 500-mile border with Iraq. "The government is thinking of building an electrified fence along the whole border with Iraq in case things go really badly in Iraq, and it starts falling apart," says a security adviser to the Saudi government, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the government has not made any official announcement of such plans.It has, however, admitted that it is looking at strengthening its border defenses. – April 20, 2006 http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0420/p07s02-wome.html
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