World Tribune.com

Contractor: Al Qaida plans imminent attack

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, March 1, 2005

LONDON — BAe Systems has alerted its employees to an imminent Al Qaida attack in Saudi Arabia.

BAe said the company has warned its 5,000 employees in Saudi Arabia of an Islamic insurgency plot to target Westerners. About 40 percent of BAe's workforce in Saudi Arabia is composed of Western nationals.

"We've raised our security status from amber to red," BAe spokesman Walid Abu Khalid said. "We got intelligence that there is a threat from terrorists. This threat is not specific to BAe. It's generic."

The BAe warning was the first issued by the company of an Al Qaida-related strike. Western embassies have not reported the prospect of an imminent attack.

But in Washington, the U.S. Homeland Security Department warned of an Al Qaida attack outside of Iraq. The department, citing intelligence gathered in February, did not elaborate.

"The intelligence continues to be analyzed by the intelligence community and all appropriate information will be passed on to homeland security partners," Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.

"The department has no plans at this time to raise the threat level based on this nonspecific information."

Over the last two years, more than 1,000 Western staffers of BAe have left Saudi Arabia. The company has offered salary increases of nearly $2,000 per month for Westerners who remain in the kingdom.

BAe has been the leading foreign contractor of Al Yamamah, the project that has brought more than $40 billion worth of aircraft and ships to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s and 1990s. Over the last five years, Al Yamamah has turned into a maintenance and training program.


Copyright © 2005 East West Services, Inc.

Print this Article Print this Article Email this article Email this article Subscribe to this Feature Free Headline Alerts


Google
Search Worldwide Web Search WorldTribune.com Search WorldTrib Archives