A suspected al Qaeda militant who claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Saudi Arabian diplomat in Yemen has warned that his group will “prepare the knives” unless their demands are met, an official Saudi spokesman said on Tuesday. Mishaal al-Shodoukhi, who was named on a list of fugitive al Qaeda militants by Saudi authorities in 2009, phoned the Saudi embassy in Yemen to demand a ransom and the release of militants in Saudi prisons, the spokesman said. He also threatened more attacks including an embassy bombing and the assassination of a Saudi prince. Abdallah al-Khalidi, the kingdom’s deputy consul in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, was kidnapped outside his residence there on March 28. “There are some people here who have been calling, ever since Khalidi was kidnapped, to prepare the knives (to kill him)… Now it is a consul kidnapped, tomorrow it will be an embassy bombing and after that a prince killed,” Shodoukhi said, according to a transcript of his conversation with the embassy released by Saudi authorities.
