RIYADH, March 23: Saudi Arabia has cancelled passports issued before 2002, it was reported here on Tuesday. However, a Saudi official insisted the move was not linked to the 9/11 events in New York and Washington, in which 15 of the 19 presumed suicide hijackers held Saudi passports.

"There is no link with the September 11 attacks," Captain Firas al-Tuwayan, public relations chief at the Passports Department, said. "We are keen on preventing forgery," such as the use of stolen or forged Saudi passports by terror suspects, "but this is not the main reason why we changed the documents," he said.

Tuwayan said authorities had started phasing out old passports and replacing them with the new electronically readable ones around two years ago "in a bid to facilitate travel procedures..." It is a move toward e-government" which will be extended to residence documents. -AFP