RIYADH, April 18: Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it had arrested five militants linked to a failed Al Qaeda attack on a major oil facility in February, and seized 1.5 tons of explosives.

An Interior Ministry statement said the five were linked to the foiled attack on Abqaiq, the world’s biggest oil processing plant, in which two militants were killed. Saudi Arabia had earlier arrested other militants linked to the incident.

State television aired a video seized by police showing militants preparing the two vehicles used in the Abqaiq attack. It said the tape and explosives were found in a warehouse outside the capital Riyadh.

The statement said documents seized “reveal the true intentions of those who abused their religion and homeland and turned themselves into destructive tools in the hands of the hateful”. It did not name the five arrested.

The footage identified some of the militants who prepared the attack, including an Al Qaeda leader, Fahd al-Juweir, who was killed days after the attack.

It showed another militant it identified as Abdullah al-Tuwaijri sitting behind the steering wheel of a pick up truck holding an assault rifle.

“This is in case security forces are present there and this is the safety button and this is the trigger,” added the man dressed in black with a ski mask rolled up to expose his face.

The tape also showed men preparing what appeared to be explosives using a cement mixer.

The television identified other masked men as Jaffal al-Shammari — one of the Abqaiq assailants — and Abdullah al-Shammari, who was killed in a shootout in Riyadh along with Tuweijri, and Ibrahim al-Muteir, the man the television said was behind the camera.

The television showed pistols, assault rifles, a computer and large amounts of compact discs and video tapes found by the authorities.

In March, the kingdom said it had arrested 40 suspected militants.—Reuters