RIYADH, Nov 2: Saudi Arabia foiled a terror attack against the United States five years ago, a Saudi official said on Sunday.

The official said the 2003 plot, which was first reported on Sunday in Al Watan newspaper, was one of 160 foiled terror plots the kingdom announced last month that it had foiled. At the time, authorities provided no details about the alleged plots.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 2003 plot involved militants who planned to hijack a plane and blow it up over a densely populated city in the US.

The militants planned to transit through the US to another destination, according to the official. That way, they could avoid applying for the hard-to-get US visas, the official said.

The official said the militants were preparing to execute the alleged plot when it was halted.

The official would not provide more details about the alleged plot, including what city the militants planned to target and whether any arrests were made.

Over the past few years, the interior ministry has said the militants it has arrested had been planning to carry out attacks inside and outside the kingdom.

The issue of Al Qaeda operatives in the kingdom has been in the news recently following Interior Minister Prince Nayef’s announcement last month that authorities had indicted 991 suspected militants on charges that they had participated in terrorist attacks carried out in Saudi Arabia over the past five years.

Prince Nayef said the militants had been responsible for more than 30 attacks in the kingdom since May 2003 that killed 164 people, 74 of them security personnel, and wounded hundreds.

Another 160 attacks had been foiled, the ministry had said at the time. The official said the countries that would have been targeted in any of the 160 attacks were notified through official channels at the time the plots were uncovered.

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has pursued an aggressive campaign against militants since May 2003, when they began their strikes in the kingdom. Subsequent attacks targeted oil installations, government buildings and other compounds.

There have been no major attacks since February 2006, when suicide bombers tried but failed to attack an oil facility at the Abqaiq oil complex, the world’s largest oil processing facility, in eastern Saudi Arabia.

It is not clear when the militants’ trials will start.--AP