A number of committees whose members include Islamic scholars have been set up to study the reasons for the spread of terrorism and find out who are financing it and inciting youth to carry out terrorist attacks, he [Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif] said.

He said Saudi security forces were now ahead of the terrorists’ game. “We have paralyzed the movement of terrorists,” Yemen’s September 26 weekly quoted the minister as saying. When asked about the bombing of a security building in Riyadh that killed six people and wounded 145 others, he said the Kingdom was “well prepared to confront such terrorist attacks.” Prince Naif denied a conflict between his account of who was behind the Yanbu killing spree and that of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard.

Speaking to top military and civilian officials in Jeddah last Saturday when four terrorists went on a shooting spree in Yanbu killing five Westerners and a National Guard officer, the crown prince said he believed Zionists were behind most terrorist attacks in the Kingdom. But in a press statement after the attack, Prince Naif blamed Al-Qaeda.

“I don’t see any contradiction in the two statements, because Al-Qaeda is backed by Israel and Zionism,” he said.