Riyadh, Dec. 3 (AFP): Saudi security forces arrested 136 suspected al Qaida militants, most of them Saudis, during a series of raids across the country over the past three months, the interior ministry has announced.

Those detained were 115 Saudis and 21 foreigners, and included a cell which had been plotting a suicide bombing, abductions and killings, it said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

That cell consisted of 31 suspects, including four foreign residents, who were detained during a “preemptive” security operation in Riyadh on September 12, the ministry said yesterday.

The cell had been “on the verge of acting, after issuing fatwas legitimising the abduction of innocent people, bargaining over them, killing them, and raiding (shops) and banks”, the ministry said.

“They included one (suspect) who wrote his will, to be publicised after he has carried out a suicide operation targeting innocent people and the nation’s resources,” it said.

Another 44 saudis were detained on October 26 in a series of simultaneous security operations in Riyadh, the eastern province and the northern regions of Al-Qassim and Hail, the ministry said. They were linked to the “deviant group” — official term for al Qaida suspects — and formed a series of “financial, religious and information committees” to carry out unspecified plans inside the country and facilitate the travel of militants to “trouble spots” — an apparent reference to Iraq, where Saudis are among foreign insurgents fighting US-led forces.

Other swoops netted a group of 16 suspects, including two foreigners, who were linked to outside “go-betweens” with the purpose of training militants abroad and sending them back to operate inside the kingdom, the statement said. The 16 were rounded up in Riyadh, the holy city of Mecca, Jazan in the south, and Al-Jawf in the north.