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A college student from Saudi Arabia studying chemical engineering in Texas has been arrested by the FBI for allegedly planning a terrorist attack on U.S. targets using explosive chemicals. Khalid Aldawsari, who is legally in the U.S. on a student visa, allegedly targeted the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush. He was arrested late Tuesday on a federal charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. “Yesterday’s arrest demonstrates the need for and the importance of vigilance and the willingness of private individuals and companies to ask questions and contact the authorities when confronted with suspicious...

Authorities Conclude Switzerland Likely Used as Base for Financing, Logistical Support for 9/11 Attacks by Al-Qaida By Daniela Sigrist Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 24, 2004 BERN, Switzerland (AP) - Investigators have concluded that Switzerland was likely used as a base for financing and logistical support for the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida, the country's attorney general said Thursday. Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher said authorities plan to begin court proceedings in the coming weeks in three terror cases, capping investigations started four days after the 2001 suicide hijackings in New York and Washington. A special task force initially was charged...

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show. The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%. The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the...

An alleged Islamic militant has told a Belgian court how he plotted to bomb a military base on an al-Qaeda mission. Nizar Trabelsi, a former Tunisian professional footballer, told how Osama Bin Laden's network sent him two years ago to Belgium to bomb the Kleine Brogel base, which houses nuclear missiles. He is one of 23 alleged Islamic militants on trial. Only eight of them are in custody, while five are still on the run and the others face lesser charges. "I was supposed to go alone in a van. The bomb was behind me," Mr Trabelsi told the Brussels...

(Aug. 25) -- A 50-year-old Sri Lankan woman who worked as a maid for a large family in Saudi Arabia for five months was allegedly tortured by some of the family members hammering nails into her body, doctors said. The woman, who flew back to Colombo, Sri Lanka, from Riyadh on Saturday night, was brought to the hospital by her concerned children Monday. X-rays showed there were 23 nails embedded in her body. "Some of the nails were 2 inches long," Dr. Prabath Gajadeera of Kamburupitiya Base Hospital told AOL News today. "Most of the nails were embedded in her...

Democratic Party front group Media Matters for America has been loyally defending First Lady Michelle Obama's luxurious Spanish vacation this week even as other liberals concede the Obama administration made a politically insensitive call in signing off on the trip.Today, Media Matters attacked Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit/Pajamas Media for his critique of Michelle Obama's trip. The headline of the attack piece: Michelle Obama derangement syndrome: Instapundit posts pic of First Lady as Marie AntoinetteNot only does the headline reinforce the growing meme that Michelle Obama is acting like a rich pig, but upon opening the article one is confronted with...

A cargo plane owned by Lufthansa crashed in Riyadh on Tuesday injuring the two-man crew, the German airline said, confirming earlier statements by a Saudi official The Lufthansa Cargo MD-11 flying 80 tonnes of freight from Frankfurt to the Saudi capital crashed at 11:38 am (0838 GMT), Lufthansa Cargo said. Both pilots suffered minor injuries and were immediately hospitalised. "The captain and the co-pilot are in good health; they only had minor injuries," Khalid al-Khaibri, a spokesman for the Saudi civil aviation authority told AFP. The German airline said "it is not yet known exactly what type of freight it...

… the remarkable reach of the global-terror network A little-noticed investigation by Swiss federal police has uncovered the existence of an apparent terror-support network with ties to the upper levels of Al Qaeda — including an operative believed to have played a role in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the May 2003 bombing of a housing complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The discovery of a largely invisible Al Qaeda network in the peaceful alpine nation has gotten virtually no public attention outside of Switzerland. But criminal charges outlined in a July 30 Swiss prosecutor’s report —...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for support lobbying for U.N. sanctions against Iran on Wednesday and discussed ways to boost the kingdom's air and missile defenses.The United States is leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, and aides to Gates made no secret of their hopes that Saudi Arabia could press regional allies for help. "We are certainly hopeful that the Saudis will use whatever influence they have, which is considerable, in this region and throughout the world to try to help...

Saudi Arabia, amid heavy fighting with Shi'ite rebels, has begun erecting another security fence along its border with Yemen. Saudi military sources said the Defense Ministry has overseen a fast-track project to construct a barbed wire fence along most of the 1,600-kilometer border with Yemen. The sources said the project reflected an urgent requirement for a physical barrier to block the flow of thousands of Shi'ite rebels and their supporters from Yemen to the Saudi kingdom. "The infiltration has reached massive proportions," a Saudi source said. "Thousands are crossing into the kingdom."

Saudi Arabia rebuffed charges that the US kidnapped a Iranian nuclear scientist on a pilgrimage to Mecca, a Saudi newspaper said Wednesday, while a leading Iranian politician branded the act "terrorist behaviour." Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Osama Nugali told Asharq Alawsat that he was "stunned by the declarations and allegations" from Tehran, which he "deplored." Nugali said that nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri's disappearance earlier this year had sparked an extensive investigation by the Saudi government. "After having been informed of his disappearance by the Iranian delegation (in Mecca), Saudi authorities undertook an intensive search in Medina as well as in...

Jordan has sent several hundred troops from its special operations forces to help the Saudi military with its many Shi'ite units contain the Yemeni Shi'ite rebellion, which has spread deep into the Arab kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is weighing buying an advanced Russian missile system to shore up its defence against a potentially nuclear Iran, Gulf analysts and diplomats said. They said Moscow and Riyadh are close to sealing a deal on a multi-billion-dollar weapons package that could include Russia's advanced S-400 missile defence system. It is the newest version of the S-300 long-range surface to air missile system that Moscow has been in discussion for several years to sell to Iran, which denies Western charges of aiming to become a nuclear power. But heavy Western and Israeli pressure and a possibly more lucrative deal...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Does Islam frown on nose jobs? Chemical peels? How about breast implants? One of the clerics with the answers is Sheik Mohammed al-Nujaimi, and Saudi women flock to him for guidance about going under the knife. The results may not see much light of day in a kingdom where women cover up from head to toe, yet cosmetic surgery is booming. Religion covers every facet of life in Saudi Arabia, including plastic surgery. Al-Nujaimi draws his guidelines from the consensus that was reached three years ago when clergymen and plastic surgeons met in Riyadh to determine...

Obama and King Abdullah spoke to reporters -- and Abdullah presented Obama with a gold medallion -- before they went into a private meeting after Obama's arrival Wednesday. Said Obama: "We have a strategic relationship and as I take this trip and will be visiting Cairo tomorrow I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty's counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East." Abdullah: "The historically strategic ties between our two countries...go back to the time of the meeting...

Former chief White House political advisor Dick Morris revealed Tuesday that his former boss Bill Clinton cared so little about global terrorism that his own Assistant Secretary of State had trouble getting him to pay attention to a bomb threat against the Khobar Towers Air Force barracks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. "In 1996, I got a phone call from Dick Holbrooke," Morris told WABC Radio's Sean Hannity. "He said, 'We're getting hard intelligence that terrorists are planning another hit on our guys in Riyadh.... They're in the exact same building they were in when it was hit last time.'" In ...

No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed... "It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognise the prophet Mohammed." "If they don't recognise him as a prophet, how can we have a church in the Saudi kingdom?" Ashiqi's comments came after a declaration launched by the papal nuncio of the Persian Gulf, the archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, at the opening of the first Catholic church in Qatar last week. El-Hachem estimated three to four million Christians...

Today President Bush toured the National museum in Riyadh and visited Saudi King Abduallah’s Al Janadriyah Farm in Al Janadriyah, where he watched the king’s horses paraded in front of them. He also spoke at the US Embassy in Riyadh, during a roundtable discussion with Saudi entrepreneurs, where he urged oil producers to take action over near record-high prices Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Baghdad First Lady Laura visited the Washington Mill Elementary School near Mt. Vernon, where she participated in the 'George Washington's Return to School' ceremony Enoy your visit to Sanity Island...

Mar. 4, 2007 15:52 | Updated Mar. 4, 2007 17:15Analysis: What actually happened in Riyadh? By DR. GUY BECHOR It would have been a sensitive visit in any case - a meeting between the two most prominent figures in the Middle East today, who represent the Shi'ite and Sunni worlds - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz VI. Everyone understood that this was a visit that would have to be prepared carefully. Ahmadinejad's personal representative Ali Larijani visited Riyadh. Larijani is Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, and the subject of the Riyadh visit was obvious. Larijani...

Abu Dhabi: A new report from the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy showed Saudi Arabia is the main beneficiary of high oil prices. But it noted the kingdom's spare capacity has sharply dwindled in the past few years because of higher output. Saudi Arabia controls nearly a quarter of the world's recoverable crude resources. "Saudi Arabia's oil export revenues increased sharply [49 per cent] in 2005 compared to 2004, and are projected to increase again [6 per cent] in 2006 before falling [-7 per cent] in 2007," it said. It noted that during 2003-2004, Riyadh benefited...