Three al Qaeda suspects arrested, US on high alert

7.45am

RIYADH - Saudi Arabian authorities have arrested three suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, security sources said, as the United States raised its terror alert status to "high".

The United States, Britain and Germany said they were closing their embassies in Saudi Arabia today, citing security concerns after Riyadh's ambassador to the United States warned of a major strike in the kingdom or on American soil.

A senior US official said the United States was raising its terror alert status to "high" from "elevated" because of a renewed risk of terrorist attack in the country.

The decision to raise the alert level to orange from yellow on the colour-coded scale was made at the White House at a meeting of top national security officials after a review of recent intelligence, the official said.

The FBI said earlier suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco last week blamed on al Qaeda could lead to an attack on the United States, though it added it had no specific information of a threat.

Washington, London and Berlin said they would shut their diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia for the next few days in the wake of last week's suicide bombings in Riyadh in which at least 34 people, including eight Americans, died.

Riyadh's envoy to Washington said he believed a much bigger operation was planned.

"I think they were looking to do something more major than this," Prince Bandar bin Sultan told foreign journalists in the oil-rich Arab state on Monday night.

"My gut feeling tells me that something big is going to happen here or in America," he said, adding that he believed there were around 50 hardcore militants in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam.

The three al Qaeda suspects were arrested on Monday in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, security sources said. It was not clear if the they were linked to the suicide bombings on residential compounds in Riyadh.

"One of the three is cooperating with us, he is talking to security," one source told Reuters.

The kingdom said on Saturday it had detained four al Qaeda suspects who it said had prior knowledge of the Riyadh attacks.

Since the September 11, 2001 suicide hijacker attacks on US cities blamed on al Qaeda, a wave of bombings around the world from Bali in Indonesia to Kenya has spared the US mainland but hit American targets abroad.

Washington's closure of its Riyadh embassy, as well as consulates general in Jeddah and the eastern city of Dhahran, from Wednesday until Sunday came one day after authorities detained a gunman roaming around the US consulate in Dhahran. No one was hurt or directly threatened.

In Morocco, where 41 people died in Friday night's multiple suicide bombings, authorities initially blamed al Qaeda, but then on Monday ruled it out. On Tuesday though, Interior Minister Mustapha Sahel repeated that a link with international terrorism had been established.

"The arrest of the two terrorists still alive has led to considerable progress in terms of information," he said in a statement carried by the official MAP news agency. "This allows us today to confirm the link with international terrorism."

Sahel said 12 Casablanca attackers died by blowing themselves up, not 13 as initially reported, when they struck mainly Jewish and Spanish targets and a Kuwaiti-owned hotel.

After talks in London with Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said:

"There have been other times in recent post-war history when there have been very serious terrorist outrages across the world. We fight them, and this battle against terrorism is one which we are winning and we will win."

In Turkey, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up on Tuesday in a cafe in Ankara, injuring one other person. Police said they believed the woman's explosives had detonated by accident and linked her to a far-left group, the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front).

DHKP-C, the largest of Turkey's extreme-left factions, said it was behind a string of small blasts in Istanbul last month to protest against the US-led war in Iraq. No one was hurt in those attacks.

- REUTERS