Al-Qa'eda Terrorist Suspects Shot By Saudis

Saudi security forces yesterday killed two suspected terrorists linked to the deaths of 22 people in a weekend al-Qa'eda attack in Khobar as further details emerged of how three of the gunmen escaped.

The pair died in a gun battle with security forces in a remote mountainous area near Mecca, 700 miles from Khobar, after they threw grenades and fired automatic weapons at pursuing police who had stopped their car at a checkpoint.

It was not known whether the two men, one of whom was disguised as a woman, were among three terrorists who escaped from Khobar after taking hostages, or whether they had another role in the plot.

A Saudi security official named one of the dead men as Abdul Rahman Mohammed Yazji, number 25 on a list of Saudi Arabia's 26 most-wanted militants.

In a separate incident, terrorists shot at two vehicles carrying American military personnel in Riyadh, slightly injuring the Saudi driver of one of them.

The US embassy said the vehicles "quickly returned to Iskan village where a US training unit working with the Saudi National Guard is based". A Saudi security adviser said yesterday that three of the four terrorists who took up to 50 people hostage in a residential compound last weekend were allowed to slip through a security cordon because they had threatened to blow up the housing complex.

"The threat was that if they killed the hostage takers, their so-called brothers outside would press the button and have the whole building go down," Mr Obaid said.

When shots were heard in the area where the hostages were being held, a decision had to be made whether to launch an attack and risk the death of everyone in an explosion or to release the gunmen. The order to release them "was part of a deal and came from senior people who said 'let them out'," Mr Obaid said.

The compound was not actually wired to explode, but security forces were able to establish this only as they moved through it floor by floor.

Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, who said he was responsible for last weekend's attack, is believed by intelligence sources to be one of the two al-Qa'eda commanders in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi intelligence services said yesterday Muqrin was a "cover" to disguise the real head of al-Qa'eda in Saudi Arabia, a Yemeni named Khaled Haj.

Re - Khalid Haj: BALONEY. See below, where they claim to have killed him.

Saudis shoot senior al-Qaeda operative

March 17, 2004

Saudi Arabian security forces have killed two militants, one a Yemeni man believed to be a leading al-Qaeda figure, in a shootout in Riyadh.

The senior al-Qaeda member was named on Monday by an Interior Ministry source as Khaled Ali Ali Haj, and the suspected militant as Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz bin Mohammad al-Muzainy.

The two men "opened fire on police after they refused to stop their car. Police responded, leading to their deaths," the source told the Saudi Press Agency. No police were hurt.

Haj had been wanted by Saudi authorities since May. His name was one of 19 published just days before triple suicide bombings - blamed on Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network - killed at least 35 people in Riyadh.

"Khaled Ali Ali Haj was a very influential figure. If he was not the leader [of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia] then he was very close to the high ranks," said an Islamist lawyer, Mohsen al-Awajy.

"He was a hardliner. His death is a very substantial setback for the organisation."

One report said he trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1997, where he worked closely with bin Laden. Before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, he visited Saudi Arabia several times, as well as countries in South-East Asia.

Saudi Arabia is battling a wave of violence blamed on al-Qaeda. Six months after the May bombings, militants killed at least another 18 people in an attack on an expatriate residential compound in Riyadh. Saudi authorities have offered rewards of up to $US1.9 million ($2.6 million) for information leading to the arrest of 23 prominent militants still on the run.

"Reuters" "News" service(Obligatory scare quotes added)

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/16/1079199227520.html

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