RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has arrested 44 Al-Qaeda suspects, including one foreigner, and discovered arms caches used by the group, the interior ministry said opn Wednesday.

"These people have links to the original Al-Qaeda organisation," interior ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki told AFP.

"These people, I would describe them like a base, they actually work in the area, recruiting young people, giving young people the ideology of al-Qaeda, and financing terrorism in the kingdom," he added.

In a statement carried by the state news agency SPA, Turki said the group "includes a number of the theorists and believers of the deviant ideology and supporters of its criminal acts."

Police found arms caches of around 70 machine guns and ammunition, as well as 280 electronic detonation devices in Riyadh, and another 96 similar devices hidden in the desert in the Qassim region north of the capital, it said.

It said that some members of the group have received training to use arms and explosives both abroad and inside the kingdom, the birthplace of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Saudi Arabia has charged almost 1,000 suspects over a bloody campaign of Al-Qaeda attacks from 2003 to 2006.