Prince Naif visits injured security officers at the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh. (SPA)

RIYADH, 4 July 2005 — The man alleged to be the leader of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Younus Mohamed Al-Hayari, was shot dead by security forces in Riyadh yesterday. Al-Hayari, a Moroccan, was No. 1 on the Interior Ministry’s recently issued list of 36 wanted terrorists.

He was killed “during a gunbattle with security forces after they raided his hide-out in an eastern neighborhood of Riyadh,” an Interior Ministry official said. Six policemen were slightly wounded in the clash.

Security forces conducted two raids in the Al-Rawda district after learning that Al-Qaeda members were using houses there as hide-outs. During the first raid, two suspects were arrested without any struggle, the ministry said.

“In the second raid, security forces were shot at and exchanged fire with the militants,” the statement said, adding that the militants threw a hand grenade at security forces following the gunbattle.

Two suspects were killed in the gunbattle, the ministry said. Forensic reports later established the identity of one of them as Younus Mohamed Al-Hayari, believed to be the leader of the terror network in the Kingdom. A suspect arrested in the second raid sustained serious injuries and was taken to a local hospital, sources said.

The ministry said it would not reveal the identity of the three arrested suspects until after interrogations have been completed.

Police also seized a large cache of weapons, ammunition, communication devices, computers and documents, which they found in the neighborhood.

Interior Minister Prince Naif said the operation was the result of extensive surveillance by the security forces, and pledged to pursue other terrorists.

“What happened today was the result of the effort of the previous period and, God willing, we will reach the rest using the same method,” he told reporters after visiting the wounded policemen in hospital.

The ministry said Al-Hayari was in the Kingdom illegally, had prepared explosives and had been involved directly in a number of terrorist attacks in the Kingdom.

A security source said: “He was considered the most dangerous because of his military experience. He fought in Bosnia, is married to a Bosnian and entered the Kingdom on a Bosnian passport.”

Yesterday’s raids and gunbattle were the first since the ministry published the new list of terrorists last week. On July 1, Fayez Ayub, who is No. 29 on the list, surrendered after returning from abroad. A statement from the Interior Ministry said his surrender would be taken into consideration when deciding his punishment.

With the slaying of Al-Hayari and the surrender of Ayub, the number on the list has been reduced to 34. Reports say three other terror suspects on the list have been killed in Iraq although the Interior Ministry has not confirmed the deaths.

According to the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, terrorist attacks in the Kingdom have killed 91 civilians and injured 510 people. Forty-one members of the security forces have been killed and 218 injured, while 112 militants have been killed and 25 wounded, he added. He estimated material losses at SR1 billion.

Prominent scholar Sheikh Mohsen Al-Awaji was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying that while Al-Qaeda militants still on the run do not compare to the likes of their notorious slain chief Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin, they remain “dangerous as individuals, rather than as an organization.”

“The group which calls itself Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been brain dead since the killing of Muqrin, Faisal Al-Dakheel and (Yemeni) Khaled Bin Haj,” said Awaji.

“The others are remnants (of the group)... They are just followers, though they remain dangerous as individuals, rather than as an organization,” he said, noting that most of those named on the new list were previously unknown.