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al-Qaida leader in Saudi Arabia killed
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-19 08:51
Police raids touched off fierce gunbattles Thursday that killed six Islamic
extremists, and authorities said the dead included al-Qaida's leader in Saudi
Arabia, whose hideout was found to hold the head of a murdered American last
summer. A police officer was also killed, reported AP.
Saleh Mohammed al-Aoofi, the kingdom's top fugitive, had led local al-Qaida
operations since his predecessor was killed by police a year ago during a
crackdown on religious militants in the homeland of Osama bin Laden and most of
the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers.
Al-Aoofi was believed involved in the June 2004 kidnapping and beheading of
engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr., whose body was shown in photos on the Internet. A
few weeks after the slaying, police found Johnson's head in a freezer at an
apartment that had been used by al-Aoofi.
Saudi policmen are seen at the site of a
shootout with militants in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, Aug.18, 2005.
[AP] | The former Saudi prison guard was one of
only two people still at large from a list of 26 most-wanted militants that was
issued in December 2003. The remaining militant is another Saudi, Talib Saud
Abdullah al-Talib. The others have either been captured or killed.
Saudi authorities issued a second list of 36 suspects in June, several of
whom have already been arrested or killed. It was not immediately known if any
of the 15 other suspects slain or captured in Thursday's raids in Riyadh and the
holy city of Medina were on that list.
The Interior Ministry said security officers staged a series of near
simultaneous raids at six suspected militant hideouts in Medina, several of them
near the Nabawi mosque, where Islam's Prophet Muhammad was buried.
At a seventh site, police battled with three militants holed up in a
building, leaving two extremists dead, including al-Aoofi, the ministry said.
The third suspect was wounded and captured, and one policeman and a resident of
the building also were wounded, it said. The official Saudi Press Agency said
later that the policeman had died.
A picture was released by Saudi Security
authorities in late 2004 shows 3 possible images for wanted militant Saleh
Mohammed al-Aoofi. Al-Aoofi, Al-Qaida's leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed
Thursday Aug.18, 2005, during clashes with police in the western city of
Medina, the Interior Ministry said.[AP] | At the
same time, police fought with militants at an apartment in the al-Massef
neighborhood of Riyadh. Four extremists were killed there, said a security
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak to journalists.
The Interior Ministry statement said human remains found at the Riyadh site
indicated at least one militant was blown apart in an explosion. It said one
extremist was arrested and a cache of weapons, explosives and money was found.
The raids came hours before King Abdullah arrived in Medina to meet with
tribal leaders and pray at the Nabawi mosque. The crackdown on al-Qaida began
while Abdullah was de facto ruler, and he vowed to push ahead when he was
elevated to king this month after the death of his half brother Fahd.
It was unclear if the raids had anything to do with last week's decision by
the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to close for two days or the warning from the British
and Australian governments for their citizens in the kingdom to be cautious amid
reports that militants planned attacks.
The Interior Ministry said at the time it had no information that a terror
attack was imminent. Britain's government said preparations for an extremist
assault were in the final stages.
The last major attack by militants came in December, when gunmen invaded the
heavily guarded U.S. Consulate in Jiddah and killed nine people.
Al-Aoofi was a veteran Islamic militant. He reportedly fought alongside
Muslim separatists in Russia's Chechnya region, then traveled to Afghanistan
shortly before the Sept. 11 terror attacks on Washington and New York. It was in
Afghanistan that he met men who would later become his comrades in the Saudi
terror network, Saudi newspapers have reported.
He was a top deputy in al-Qaida's cell in Saudi Arabia when it launched a
violent campaign with car bombings that killed 35 people at foreigners' housing
compounds May 12, 2003.
At the time, the al-Qaida cell was led by militant Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, a
Saudi who was thought to have masterminded the June 12, 2004, kidnapping of
Johnson, an engineer with Lockheed Martin.
Johnson's kidnappers announced his slaying six days later, posting pictures
of his beheading on the Internet. Hours later, Moqrin was killed in a gunbattle
with Saudi police, and al-Aoofi took up the leadership.
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