JEDDAH, 15 June 2003 — Several suspected terrorists were killed and others arrested in a shootout in the holy city of Makkah yesterday.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said five terrorists and two security officers were killed and seven others were injured in the incident, which took place on Saturday night. Several suspected terrorists were arrested including two from Chad, one Egyptian and a Saudi, the ministry said.
“Security forces raided a group of terrorists... who were preparing for an imminent terror attack,” the statement said. The apartment where the terrorists were living was “booby-trapped and ready to blow up,” it added.
Police seized 72 locally-made bombs of various sizes, in addition to several automatic rifles, guns, ammunition, communication devices, cleavers, chemicals for use in the manufacture of bombs, and masks.
The suspects opened fire as police stormed the building in the third major bust of suspected terrorist hideouts since the Riyadh bombings, the ministry said, adding that further details would be released later.
The spokesman said efforts were under way to identify the killed terrorists. The security officers killed in the incident were Yasser ibn Hasbullah Al-Mawlid and Fahd ibn Abdullah Wazna.
According a report carried by Okaz Arabic daily, the suspects had fled to the building after a car chase with police. An Indian migrant worker who lives in the area said he was shot at overnight by three men who tried to take his car, in an apparently related incident.
“Three men with machine-guns tried to take over my car. I refused to drive them, so they made me get out, then they shot at me as they drove off,” Abdul Khaleq Raheem Sheikh, 50, said.
Sheikh, who was injured by broken glass, said police had cordoned off the area. Residents of Jeddah reported two-mile traffic tailbacks into Makkah amid security checks.
Saudi official sources said the suspects were wanted men, but declined to say if they were linked to last month’s suicide bomb blasts in Riyadh which targeted Westerners and have been blamed on Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
“The situation is under control,” an official source said. “Security forces managed to arrest seven wanted people and five were killed during the storming of a building in the Khalediya district where terrorist elements were thought to be,” Okaz said.
The Makkah shootout was the second bloody confrontation between terrorists and Saudi security forces in the past two weeks, and came on the heels of an announcement by the interior minister on Saturday that 30 terror suspects have been arrested in all.
Fifteen men and women were arrested in the holy city of Madinah in late May and two security men were killed and three others wounded in a shootout on May 31 with two suspects in the northern province of Hail. One of the gunmen was arrested while the second was killed.
The Saudi security authorities were still searching for several other suspects, including 10 members of a cell of 19 uncovered by the Kingdom just a few days before the Riyadh attacks.
Interior Minister Prince Naif has blamed Al-Qaeda for the attacks, saying “We have no doubt about this. It’s very clear and all (attacks) came from Al-Qaeda.”
Correspondents reported that security measures were beefed up yesterday in the capital Riyadh and in the economic center of Jeddah following the Makkah clash. Roadblocks and checkpoints were set up on the main roads as they had been in the aftermath of the May 12 attacks, before being gradually eased.
The Saudi government has repeatedly pledged to root out terrorism in the Kingdom and warned the crackdown would include hardline ideologists and sympathizers of Al-Qaeda. The Interior Ministry has urged citizens to renew their firearm licenses, warning of penalties for those who fail to do so on time. Holders must renew their annual firearms licenses within three months of the expiry date or risk cancellation or a fine of SR1,000.
An amnesty for Saudis to surrender unlicensed firearms expired at the end of February 2003, after another amnesty period for citizens to register illegal arms expired last year.
