RIYADH, 4 November 2004 — Al-Qaeda has named its top leader in Saudi Arabia, a statement pre-recorded and posted on an Islamic website on the Internet has claimed.
“Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula” has named Saud ibn Hamoud Al-Otaibi — one of the top terrorists on the 26 most wanted list — as a replacement to Saleh Al-Oufi, the former leader who it claims was killed after receiving gunshot wounds when security forces raided a house in Riyadh last summer.
The Ministry of Interior has neither confirmed nor denied Al-Oufi’s death.
Al-Otaibi is 36 years old and is father of seven children. The suspect moved between Yemen and Saudi Arabia and afterward left to fight in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. He is the fourth Al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia after his predecessors were all killed in successful security raids on terrorist hideouts over the past year.
On April 16, security forces shot dead Khaled Haj, Al-Qaeda’s first leader in the Kingdom, along with another terror suspect in a shootout in Al-Naseem district in Riyadh after they failed to stop at a security checkpoint.
Police confiscated weapons, hand grenades, ammunition, and over SR100,000 from the Nissan Patrol they were driving.
On June 18, Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin, the second Al-Qaeda leader in the Kingdom, was gunned down in Al-Malaz district shortly after his group beheaded American national Paul Johnson.
Al-Muqrin was responsible for the slayings of four Westerners in Riyadh, including BBC cameraman Simon Cumbers, who was shot and killed when unknown gunmen opened fire on the vehicle he was driving. Cumbers was accompanying BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner — who was seriously injured in the attack — to the notorious Al-Suwaidi district to shoot footage of the house of Ibrahim Rayis, the first terrorist killed by security forces.
A statement from the Interior Ministry later said that the gun battle between the terrorists and security forces netted 12 suspects. Al-Muqrin’s death was a severe blow to Al-Qaeda that has been crippled in the past year due to successful raids and tight security measures taken by authorities.
With the death of Al-Oufi, the number of top terrorists left on the 26-man list provided by the Ministry of Interior last year stands at eight.
