JEDDAH, 3 September 2004 — A Saudi wanted for a shooting and hostage-taking rampage in the eastern city of Alkhobar earlier this year has surrendered, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. The ministry identified the terrorist as Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz ibn Ahmed Al-Muqrin.
An Interior Ministry official said Muqrin was wanted for establishing a terrorist cell in the Eastern Province, which “prepared for the criminal attack on the Oasis compound in Alkhobar” on May 29-30 and claimed the lives of 22 people including foreigners.
Muqrin was also wanted for being in contact with “internal and external parties with the aim of executing suspicious plans,” the official said. However, he was not on the list of 26 wanted terrorists published by the ministry in December last year.
Security forces had previously arrested three members of the cell, two of whom are Saudis. The third is a foreign resident, the official said, giving no specific date for the arrests.
Four Westerners were among the 22 people killed in the Alkhobar rampage, which was claimed by the Al-Qaeda terror network and came amid a spate of attacks on Western residents by suspected Al-Qaeda extremists.
The ministry announced at the time that four gunmen carried out the bloody attack. Three of them managed to escape. The leader of the group, described as one of the most wanted militants in the Kingdom, was wounded and captured when Saudi commandos landed on the roof of the building, the ministry said.
Officials later said that one of the Alkhobar attackers who managed to escape was shot dead by security forces in Riyadh on June 18, along with Al-Qaeda’s local chief Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin and two other associates.
The four were gunned down after Al-Qaeda posted grisly photos on websites showing the beheading of an American aeronautics engineer they had taken hostage. The beheading climaxed a string of attacks on Westerners by suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen, which began in May 2003. Some 90 people have been killed and hundreds hurt in the violence.
