No mercy for al-Qaida in Saudi kingdom

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- There is no evidence Osama bin Laden's terror network is operating in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's top security official said Wednesday, but he promised no mercy for any al-Qaida radicals who might be discovered in the country.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef also acknowledged for the first time publicly that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudi. Previously, Saudi Arabia said citizenship of the 15 was in doubt despite U.S. insistence they were Saudis.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Nayef said the kingdom's stability hasn't been affected by the attacks in the United States, dismissing as irrelevant edicts by radical clergymen that said Muslims who cooperate with infidels become infidels.

"The situation is stable," he said. "Those clerics don't constitute any threat."

Nayef also said the Islam preached and taught in Saudi Arabia rejects extremism and does not breed terrorists.

"We are not Taliban," he said, referring to the extremist Muslim militia that ruled Afghanistan and harbored bin Laden. "We believe and live by the right Islam."

Bin Laden -- chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- was born in Saudi Arabia but stripped of his citizenship in 1994.

Nayef said authorities are aware of what's being preached in mosques and will ask clergymen who may get carried away in anti-Western sermons to "tell people the truth and not to get too emotional."

He said relations with the United States remain "normal ... with no problems marring them." But he said the kingdom was being unfairly attacked by the U.S. media, which did not understand the country.

He said the only point of contention between the countries is the Palestinian issue.

Nayef said the United States should "take a just and evenhanded stand" in the Mideast peace process and should not provide "unqualified" support for Israel if it wants to improve its image.

Saudi leaders, he said, were shocked to learn 15 of the hijackers were from the oil-rich kingdom, according to Nayef.

"The names that we got confirmed that," Nayef said. "Their families have been notified."

Asked how Saudi Arabia could have missed the 15, he said: "How can I place the name of a Saudi on a blacklist when I have nothing to justify the action? The Saudis are free to travel wherever they like."

"If we had known they were going to do what they had done, we would have stopped them," he added.

Nayef said the hijackers were just "regular guys" whose parents were too naive to attach importance to their travels.