RIYADH, 3 June 2003 — Security checkpoints, which had been drastically reduced on the streets of the capital, were back again yesterday in even greater numbers than in the wake of the May 12 bombings which killed 25 people and nine suicide attackers.

The reason for the beefed-up security appeared to be the shootout between terrorists and police in the northern Hail region on Saturday night, in which two security officers and one suspected terrorist were killed.

For the first time yesterday, a checkpoint was even set up in the middle of a main freeway. Traffic came to a standstill on the Makkah Road in the mid-afternoon as police checked the IDs of all drivers despite the blazing sun.

Policemen at several other checkpoints throughout the city, including the one just outside the airport, stood next to Special Forces trucks with mounted machine guns.

In Hail on Saturday, two suspects sped away in their car to escape an identity check by security forces. They threw a grenade at the officers who gave chase, killing two of the officers and wounding others. However, the officers caught up with them and in the process killed one terrorist suspect. The other was arrested.

The dead man was identified as Saleh Al-Alyeeri, one of the 19 Al-Qaeda suspects sought by the government following a raid on a terrorist hide-out here a week prior to the suicide bombings on May 12.

During a swoop on a terrorist cell in the city of Madinah last Tuesday and Wednesday, police forces arrested 11 people allegedly associated with or involved in the Riyadh terrorist attacks.

Some of the suspects were hiding in a villa in a public housing project in the city. During the operation, police discovered a large number of guns, boxes of ammunition, dangerous chemicals, hand grenades, remote control devices and electricity circuits used to make bombs, as well as forged IDs and cash.

As a result of the raid and the confiscation of weapons, security forces have erected tents on the outskirts of the main public housing project in Madinah. Residents who leave are asked to get out of their cars and to enter the tents, where they are subjected to a body search.

Tents have been set up so that both women and men can be searched, a Madinah resident told Arab News last night.

Meanwhile, an American citizen, who was seriously wounded in the May 12 bombings, has died in the capital, pushing the death toll in the suicide attacks to 26, the US Embassy said yesterday.

“An American citizen has died. The number of US nationals who died in the bombings has risen to nine,” an embassy spokesperson said, but declined to give the name for privacy reasons.

He said that 43 US citizens had been wounded in the explosions, but “some of them have been discharged” from hospital.

Also yesterday, a US civilian shot by an unknown gunman last month at a Saudi naval base died in hospital, a US Embassy spokesman announced, adding that the man died recently at a hospital in the Eastern Province. No further details were provided, including the man’s identity, pending notification of next of kin.

The embassy has said previously that the American was a contractor for the Saudi Royal Naval forces.

He was injured in a May 1 attack at the King Abdul Aziz Naval base in Jubail.

The shooting, carried out by a man dressed in a Saudi Navy uniform, came on the same day the State Department advised Americans to avoid travel to Saudi Arabia because of increased terrorism concerns.

US officials at the time of the attack said the assailant had not been found. Saudi officials have said that they are still searching for the gunman.