Suspects in Saudi terror plot include many teens

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi security forces unraveling an alleged plot to attack the holiest city in the Islamic world say many of the suspects were teenagers -- one as young as 15, whose boyish features and hairless cheeks may have helped mask a violent assignment.\nThe suspected Mecca plot uncovered earlier this month, coupled with the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh that killed 35 people, kick-started Saudi efforts to crack down on militant groups here. The resulting investigations show that terror groups appear to have been fishing for recruits among the vast pool of young men in the Saudi kingdom, where more than half the population of about 20 million is under 18.\nAn Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that some recruits were high school students and that the average age of al Qaeda suspects in the Riyadh attacks and Mecca plot was 20.\nOf 12 suspected al Qaeda militants arrested last week in the Mecca plot, six were minors, the official said. The raid on a bomb-filled, booby-trapped apartment in Mecca left five suspects and two police officers dead.\nThe roughly 660 detainees being held in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suspected of terrorist connections come from 42 countries; however, more than 120 detainees are from Saudi Arabia alone -- including the youngest, a 17 year old.\nAl Qaeda leaders have been open about their policy of recruiting young Saudis, said an expert on militants.\n"Osama bin Laden has said publicly in interviews that he is targeting people in the 15 to 25 age range. They are the most valuable and the most malleable of the organization's foot soldiers," said Abdul-Rahman al-Motawa, who recently published a book on Saudis detained at Guantanamo.\nAl-Motawa said many Saudi youth who end up as members of al Qaeda cells are recruited through Web sites and private gatherings.\n"The Internet is very dangerous. Many of the young men were lured to Afghanistan with the promise of work with relief organizations. Once there, they were trained and sometimes sent back to Saudi Arabia to carry out attacks here," he said.\nThe Mecca plot is believed to be linked to the May 12 attacks on Western residential compounds in Riyadh, whose victims included nine Americans and nine Saudi attackers. Al Qaeda, the terror network led by Saudi-born bin Laden and blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, has been linked to both cases.\nSince the Riyadh attacks, Saudi authorities have questioned 1,000 people and detained 300, a Saudi official in Washington said last week. Interior Minister Prince Nayef said in an interview published Sunday in the daily Okaz newspaper that 44 suspected terrorists have been detained and that authorities are seeking other suspects, including suspected May 12 bombings' mastermind Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi and Turki Nasser al-Dandani.\nMishari al-Zaida, a journalist with the London-based Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat who has written widely about militants, notes that there is nothing unusual about young men being involved in terror groups, but the ages of the Mecca plot suspects was "a big surprise."\n"Usually the ages of people involved in this type of act was between 19 and 30, like the 15 Saudis involved in Sept. 11," he said.\nThe suspects in the Mecca plot range from 15 to 25 years old, including three who are 17 and two who are 18.\nSaudi analyst Jamal Khashoggi said young Saudis may be more susceptible to militant groups because they feel they have nothing to lose.\n"Because of their youth and the fact that they don't have wives or children, the idea of dying for a cause is easier. Also, it's an age of idealism. They want to feel important, they want to be part of a bigger cause," he said.\nSaudi authorities have realized the danger. Following the Mecca raid, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said families here should watch their children more carefully and report to the authorities immediately if they go missing.\n"Let this be a lesson to all of us. We have to watch over our children in all their actions. We have to be sure they are in the right place . . . and under the supervision of their parents. We are all responsible for our children," the prince said this week, after meeting with families of the Saudis detained as terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay.\nA family member of the youngest Guantanamo detainee, Abdul-Salam Ghaithan al-Shihri, said the teenager's relatives had believed he was going to Mecca to perform a minor pilgrimage when he disappeared.\n"The next time we saw him was on television being arrested in Afghanistan," his brother Umran told the AP.