Morocco has arrested three Saudis suspected to be members al-Qaeda planning "terrorist attacks" on US and British ships in the Straits of Gibraltar, a senior government official said yesterday.
"Morocco's security services have dismantled a network of al Qaeda who planned terrorist attacks on US and British warships crossing the Straits of Gibraltar... It was a successful operation," the official, who declined to be named, said. He was speaking at a private briefing in Skhirat, 15 miles south of Rabat.
The official said the three men, holding Saudi passports, were arrested in Morocco last month. He declined to name them, saying only they were aged between 25 and 35.
He said the men planned to sail small dinghies carrying explosives into the Straits of Gibraltar.
The official said they were planning an attack similar to the raid on the US warship Cole while it was refueling off Yemen in 2000. Washington blamed that suicide attack, which killed 19 sailors, on al-Qaeda.
Earlier yesterday, US authorities said they had captured a suspected American al-Qaeda operative carrying out reconnaissance for an attack on the United States with a radioactive "dirty bomb."
The three Saudi nationals were being held in custody in Casablanca prior to interrogation by the prosecutor, the Moroccan official said.