May 18, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

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RIYADH, May 17: No one has been arrested in connection with triple suicide bombings that killed 34 people here on May 12, Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said in remarks published on Saturday.

“I cannot say now,” that we have arrested any suspects, he told Al-Riyadh daily. “We hope to arrest them, God willing.”

The minister said it was not absolutely clear if the perpetrators of Monday night’s attacks were among a cell of 19 members Saudi police uncovered on May 6.

“They could be among them and they could be not ... In fact, we have only seen their pictures, and this is not enough,” said Prince Nayef, adding that bombers’ bodies had yet to be identified.

The prince said the number of those who carried out the attacks had not yet been established.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the terrorists who carried out the car bombings were part of an Al Qaeda cell whose hideout was raided by Saudi police on May 6.

FAHD’S PLEDGE: Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd said on Saturday his country was determined to wipe out terrorism.

“This nation is united over the need to stamp out all forms of the terror scourge, and God willing, is capable (of doing so) with the cooperation of its people,” the king told the Shura Council.

“The Saudi people ... reject all forms and shapes of terrorism and will not allow a handful of errant terrorists to harm the safety of this country, its people and resident expatriates,” the king vowed.

The affirmation came during a key policy address to the 120-member appointed council at the start of the third year of its third legislative term.

The Saudi people “will not allow the presence of an errant and misguided ideology that promotes and feeds terror, even when this ideology professes to be religious,” the king said.

He affirmed that the Islamic faith was against terrorism.—Agencies