RIYADH, March 29: Forty suspected militants have been arrested in the country over the past few days, a spokesman of the interior ministry said here on Wednesday. The militants were arrested in various Saudi cities. Eight of them were linked to Al Qaeda’s attack on an oil processing plant last month, the spokesman added.

The arrests were announced amid reports of another apparent failed attempt to attack and disrupt the flow of oil from the world’s largest oil facility in Abqaiq, in eastern Saudi Arabia.

According to media reports, security forces thwarted the terrorist attack on the refinery, the second in two months. The Kuwaiti news agency KUNA and the Iraqi Radio Nawa reported that police had found two car bombs in the area.

Security forces reportedly broke into a house in Al-Muntaar town where Saudi Arabian oil company, Aramco’s, employees live, to find two booby trapped cars with the company’s logo on them.

The local daily, al-Riyadh, said that several bombs, machineguns and explosive materials were found, adding that the owner of the house was arrested and is currently being interrogated.

Giving out details of countrywide arrests made in recent days, the spokesman said that the security forces have also seized a cache of explosives and firearms in simultaneous raids in several parts of the kingdom.

“The security forces have arrested eight people who are directly linked to that cell (Abqaiq),” a ministry statement said, adding that it would not identify the suspects arrested.

The security services also seized more than 100 grenades and dozens of assault rifles, the spokesman said. He was unable to say if the suspects had been planning new attacks.

“The arrests were made over the last week or so,” the spokesman said. “Some of them were related to publishing the terrorists’ ideas on the internet ... others were providing assistance, hideouts and financing the terrorists,” the spokesman was quoted as saying.

Saudi television aired footage of the cache showing hand grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, and various firearms.