Officials: Saudi police arrest top terror suspect

Officials: Saudi policearrest top terror suspect
CAIRO, Egypt -- Saudi police arrested a top Saudi terror suspect, officials said today, weeks after the Al-Qaida-linked cleric reassured followers he was "taking all necessary precautions" to evade a government sweep.
Faris Ahmed Jamaan al-Showeel al-Zahrani was No. 12 on the kingdom's list of 26 most-wanted terror suspects. More than half the others on the list have been either killed or captured in a crackdown that followed a series of bombings in Riyadh in May 2003.
Police captured al-Zahrani and a second suspect Thursday night, an unidentified Interior Ministry official told the Saudi Press Agency. The second suspect's name was not released.
The official described al-Zahrani as "a preacher of denouncing people as infidels." Islamic militants often label their enemies as infidels before they attack them. Al-Zahrani and the second suspect were detained "swiftly and efficiently," and were not able to use the weapons they were carrying, the official said.
Ex-U.S. sailors facedrug charges in Japan
TOKYO -- Japanese police arrested two former U.S. Navy sailors who are accused of trying to smuggle Ecstasy and other illegal stimulants worth over $1.80 million into Japan through the U.S. military mail service, officials said today.
The 30,000 Ecstasy tablets confiscated marked the second biggest drug bust for the stimulant in Japan.
Local police arrested Babe Cole, 25, and William Jenkins, 27. Cole was formerly a sailor in the U.S. Navy and is now a staff member at the welfare section of Yokosuka, a U.S. Naval Base west of Tokyo. Jenkins was also a U.S. Navy sailor but is unemployed, said Kanagawa state police spokesman Hiroyoshi Ichikawa.
The hometowns of both men were not immediately available, Ichikawa said. A spokeswoman for Yokosuka Naval Base also could not provide their hometowns.
The two men were arrested in separate places in Kanagawa on Thursday.
Police allege they tried to smuggle 30,000 tablets of Ecstasy and 20,000 tablets mixing Ecstasy with other stimulants into Japan from Canada via the United States with the intent of selling them.
Ichikawa said Japanese police arrested the two after being tipped off by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Authorities arrest ex-conaccused in explosion plot
CHICAGO -- A disgruntled ex-con accused of plotting to blow up the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago was arrested with a pickup truck containing 1,500 pounds of fertilizer he reportedly thought could be used to make a powerful bomb, authorities said.
Gale William Nettles, 66, planned to sell the chemical to terrorists so they could blow up the Dirksen federal building, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in announcing the charges Thursday.
But everyone else involved, including the "terrorists" and the people who sold him the fertilizer, were cooperating witnesses or federal agents, Fitzgerald said. Authorities said Nettles thought the chemical was ammonium nitrate, the farm fertilizer used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building.
Nettles had been under nearly constant surveillance since he walked out of a Mississippi prison late last year, authorities said. A felon who had been incarcerated with Nettles at the Mississippi prison tipped authorities about the plot.
Nettles appeared in court Thursday and Federal Magistrate Morton Denlow ordered that he remain in custody until a Tuesday detention hearing.
The investigation began in August 2003 while Nettles was serving time for counterfeiting at a federal prison in Yazoo City, Miss. It was there that Nettles asked a government informant if he could help him obtain ammonium nitrate, according to the criminal complaint.
Israel reopens border
RAFAH BORDER CROSSING, Gaza Strip -- Israel reopened the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt today, allowing some 1,500 Palestinians to head home after being stranded in Egypt for three weeks.
The first busload of Palestinians crossed into Gaza early today. Hundreds of Palestinians had slept on the ground near the crossing during the closure. The Haaretz newspaper Web site reported U.S. pressure forced Israel to reopen the crossing.
Israel closed the Rafah terminal July 18, saying it had intelligence information that Palestinian militants had dug a tunnel under the crossing or a nearby Israeli army outpost and were planning to blow it up.
During the closure, hundreds of Palestinians slept outdoors near the Rafah terminal, while others waited at hostels or returned to Cairo.
Associated Press