The Hindu : International : Six Al-Qaeda suspects detained in Bahrain

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Wednesday, Jun 23, 2004

International

International

Six Al-Qaeda suspects detained in Bahrain

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, JUNE 22. In a pre-dawn swoop, Bahrain's security forces have detained six people suspected of having links with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Abdullah Hashim, the lawyer for three of the six Bahrainis who were picked up told The Hindu that the detenus had so far not been charged. He added "there is talk about their links with Al-Qaeda," but this has, so far, not been officially stated. Those in custody are Bassam al-Ali and brothers Yasser Abdullah Kamal and Omar Abdullah Kamal, Mohedin Mahmud Khan, his brother Ali Mahmud Khan and Bassam Abdullah Bukhowa.

The father of the Kamal brothers, Abdullah, said one of his sons had been picked up at an Internet cafe, and the other was at home. Police also searched the home of Sheikh Mohammad Saleh, a Saudi national, but did not arrest him. A large number of documents, books and computer discs were confiscated during the raid. A statement by Bahrain's Interior Minister, Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, said the arrests were based on inputs received from "considered security bodies". He added that security forces searched a number of sites across the Kingdom for "dangerous materials," following the detentions.

The swoop follows the U.S. warning to its citizens that they could be subjected to an extremist attacks in all the Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia. Bahrain is only half-an-hour away by road from Saudi Arabia's eastern oil city of Al-Khobar, where an Al-Qaeda attack on a residential compound last month killed 22 people.

Mr. Hashim said the six detenus included individuals who had been arrested and released last year. Bassam al-Ali was one of five arrested in February 2003 for allegedly running a terror cell in the Gulf state. He was released last June for lack of evidence. Mohedin Khan and Bukhowa were also alleged to be members of the cell. Saleh was arrested in Saudi Arabia in July last year and released in April. He was reportedly detained because he received a telephone call from one of the 26 men named on Saudi Arabia's list of most wanted militants.

Mr. Hashim acknowledged that his clients were sympathisers of the Sunni Salafi movement, but that did not make them `terrorists'. The Salafis are known to be close to Wahhabis — Saudi Arabia's prevailing sect.

A spurt in migration of Western expatriates from Saudi Arabia after the Al-Qaeda attacks has raised security concerns in Bahrain. Real estate agents in the Kingdom say that most of the residential compounds favoured by Westerners are now full, mainly because families of Western executives employed in Al-Khobar and Dammam have shifted.

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