Saudi Security Forces Helped Kidnappers, al-Qaida Group Says

(AP-Billings Gazette) – The al-Qaida group responsible for beheading an American engineer said sympathizers in the Saudi security forces provided police uniforms and cars used during the victim’s kidnapping, according to an Islamic extremist Web site Sunday. The account of the abduction of Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was later decapitated, highlighted the fears expressed by some diplomats and Westerners in the kingdom that militants have infiltrated Saudi security forces – a possibility Saudi officials have denied. The article recounting the abduction appeared in Sawt al-Jihad, or Voice of the Holy War, a semimonthly Internet periodical posted by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula – the group that claimed responsibility for killing Johnson. According to the account, militants wearing police uniforms and using police cars set up a fake checkpoint June 12 on al-Khadma Road, leading to the airport, near Imam Mohammed bin Saud University . “A number of the cooperators who are sincere to their religion in the security apparatus donated those clothes and the police cars. We ask God to reward them and that they use their energy to serve Islam and the mujahedeen,” the article read. When Johnson’s car approached the checkpoint, the militants stopped it, detained him, anesthetized him and carried him to another car, the article said. Earlier Saudi newspaper reports said Johnson was drugged during the kidnapping. In a separate article on the Web site, the leader of the al-Qaida cell behind the abduction, Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, justified the targeting of Johnson, pointing to his work on Apache attack helicopters for Lockheed Martin. Johnson “works for military aviation and he belongs to the American army, which kills, tortures and harms Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies (of Islam) in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir,” wrote al-Moqrin.

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/06/21/build/world/65-saudi-security-forces.inc