Deputy interior minister survives Qaeda suicide bomb......................
RIYADH: Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, deputy interior minister responsible for anti-terror fight, escapes an assassination attempt late on Thursday in Jeddah after a suicide bomber who claimed wanted to give himself up to authoritiesin got close to him and detonated his explosives.
Prince bin Nayef was meeting well-wishers for the Moslem fasting month of Ramadan on Thursday when a man blew himself up with explosives he was carrying, the Saudi News Agency said reported.
Qaeda’s role
The suicide bomber was a wanted militant who had insisted on meeting the prince to announce he was giving himself up to authorities, SPA added. It said the man, whom it did not name, was the only casualty.
The Saudi wing of al-Qaeda was swift in claiming responsibility. In a statement posted on an Islamist website late Thursday, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said it was behind the bomb, according to the U.S.-based monitoring group, SITE Intelligence.
The attack was the first to directly target a member of the royal family since the start of a wave of violence by Qaeda sympathizers in 2003 against the saudi monarchy.
"This will only increase our determination to eradicate this (terrorism)," said Prince bin Nayef, apparently slightly injured, in a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz who was visiting him in the hospital.
Jamal Khashaqji, editor-in-Chief of the Saudi newspaper al-Watan, told Al Arabiya that targeting Prince bin Nayef, as a member of the royal family, represents Qaeda’s fight for power and authority, not for reform as it claims.
Earlier this month, Saudi authorities announced the arrest of 44 Qaeda-linked suspects and the seizure of explosives, detonators and firearms.
In 2004, suspected terrorists rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into the entrance of the Interior Ministry headquarters in the capital Riyadh.
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