RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had arrested 208 militants for involvement in cells planning an imminent attack on an oil installation, as well as attacks on clerics and security forces.
State television in the world's biggest oil exporter said one of the cells was planning to smuggle in missiles. Al Qaeda sympathizers have mounted a campaign against the U.S.-allied monarchy since 2003.
A cell of eight militants led by a foreign resident planned an attack on an oil facility in the Eastern Province, it said. Saudi Arabia has been building a 35,000-strong rapid reaction force to protect installations after a failed al Qaeda attack in 2006 on the world's largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq.
"Security forces foiled an imminent attack on an oil support installation in the Eastern Province after the perpetrators prepared themselves and set a date," it said.
The report, citing an Interior Ministry statement, said 18 of those arrested belonged to a cell led by an "expert in launching missiles" who had slipped into the country. It said they planned to smuggle eight projectiles into the kingdom.
Another 22 were part of a group that plotted to assassinate clerics and security forces, it said.
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The report also said the arrests included a "media cell" of 16 in Medina which aimed to promote "takfiri thinking" -- the ideology of Sunni Muslim radicals that supports violence against Muslims branded as infidels and apostates.
Those arrested also included 32 people -- both Saudis and foreigners -- involved in providing financial support for militants, the ministry said in the statement.
After the February 2006 failed attack on the Abqaiq plant, authorities have announced the break-up of cells involving several hundreds of people.
"They are unraveling networks but these are not hardcore people, they are peripheral," a Western diplomat said, adding the government was worried about public "complacency" that the militant campaign was over.
"These are people caught by monitoring Web sites and looking at financial flows. The hard core is really decimated already," said the diplomat.
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