Television station airs 'al-Qaeda tape'

An Arabic television channel has aired parts of a video apparently showing al-Qaeda militants preparing for a bomb attack that…

An Arabic television channel has aired parts of a video apparently showing al-Qaeda militants preparing for a bomb attack that killed 18 people in Saudi Arabia in November.

The videotape aired by Dubai-based satellite station Al Arabiya showed fighters training and making explosives against a background of religious chants often heard in the promotional videos of al-Qaeda.

Al Arabiya said the 90-minute tape, which described the men as Saudi nationals, had been released on an al-Qaeda website. The site was not accessible from Dubai.

The excerpts showed the faces of the two suicide bombers who allegedly carried out the November attack, while others were masked. Saudi Arabia said in December it had arrested a suspect in the bombing and seized a large cache of weapons.

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Al-Qaeda, led by Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, is seen as the group behind the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Analysts say that over the last year al-Qaeda and Islamic radicals linked to it have undertaken a campaign to overthrow the royals in Saudi Arabia - the world's largest oil exporter and home to Islam's holiest sites.