In one incident last week, several armed security officials barged into the café and questioned the Saudi and expatriate employees manning the place.

"The security officials showed me a particular mail ID and wanted to gather information about the person using that identity," said Arif Ziauddin, manager of a local Internet café, who was visibly shaken after being questioned at gunpoint.

The officials, he said, also checked whether the café is complying with the revised Saudi government regulations issued late last year, Arab News daily reported. The new regulation states that all customers should surrender their ID cards so that their names and ID numbers can be written down before accessing the Net.

Ziauddin did not disclose the name of the café. He, however, said that many terror suspects have turned to cyberspace to communicate with their accomplices since the May 12, 2003 bombings in Riyadh.

"Another cyber café named Barq Net was raided three times within a week and the security officials also detained a Saudi citizen, who was surfing the Net at that time," said Hassan Adlous, an Arab expatriate.