Al-Qaeda planned to use poisoned perfume to kill Saudi govt. officials

LONDON - Al-Qaeda militants planned to kill Saudi government and security officials by using poisoned perfumes to their offices.

The group also “planned to rob banks and companies to finance their operations,” Saudi authorities said on Saturday.

Last month Saudi Arabia said it had captured 149 al-Qaeda militants in recent months who were raising money and recruiting members to carry out attacks on government facilities, security officials and the media, The Scotsman reports.

“Using poisoned perfume which they planned to send as gifts is one of the ways the arrested people planned to carry out their assassinations,” an Interior Ministry official said.

The militants, who revealed their plans to Saudi security forces, belonged to 19 al-Qaeda cells and comprised 124 Saudis and 25 foreigners.

The groups had links to militants in Somalia and Yemen, the Interior Ministry said last month.

Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi wings merged in 2009 into a new group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen, The Scotsman reports.

In August 2009 a suicide bomber posing as a repentant militant tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s top anti-terrorism official, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, but only inflicted minor injuries. (ANI)