Saudis detain 'internet jihadis'

Saudi Arabia has used a range of strategies to try to combat jihadis

Saudi Arabian police say they have arrested five men on charges of using the internet to recruit for al-Qaeda.

The five men are accused of encouraging people to take up arms in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Traditional security measures have led to the arrest of hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects over the last seven years.

BBC Arab Affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says efforts to monitor the internet now appear to be paying off as well.

The Saudi interior ministry said the men had used 28 different screen names to access various websites.

The Saudi authorities have been monitoring radical websites for some time.

They have launched their own internet-based campaign to infiltrate chat rooms and gather information on militant cells.

The authorities have also used the media and enlisted the support of moderate clerics to discredit the ideology of al-Qaeda.