Saudi police seize armed man entering Mecca mosque

RIYADH, Feb 2 (Reuters) Saudi police arrested a man with weapons hidden under his clothes as he tried to enter the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, a Saudi security official said today.

Police stopped the man late yesterday because he appeared to be acting strangely. He was carrying a revolver and a sub-machinegun under his clothes, and was wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt but which later proved to be fake.

The man's nationality was not clear.

Militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda launched a campaign to topple the US-allied Saudi monarchy in 2003. Sunni-Shi'ite Muslim violence in Iraq and Lebanon has raised fears of sectarian strife across the region.

Militants stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, in a rebellion that was crushed two weeks later.

Reuters SBA VP0612