JEDDAH, 7 December 2003 — Seven members of a street gang are in police custody after being involved in the shooting of a 25-year-old fellow gang member.
Police rushed to the Nayeem district in north Jeddah after receiving reports of heavy machine gun fire in the area early Friday morning.
The members of the gang, five Saudis and two Yemenis, were apparently arguing when one gang member brandished a Kalashnikov rifle and fired several shots, one of which struck another gang member. The injured man, a Saudi, was rushed to a local hospital where he is said to be in stable condition.
A source at Salamah district police headquarters who asked not to be identified told Arab News: “Because of the recent warnings of possible terrorist acts in the Kingdom, and the recent arrests of terror suspects and seizure of explosives, obviously police everywhere are in a heightened state of alert and are especially quick to respond when something like this happens.”
Immediately after receiving reports of the shooting, police from Nayeem and two neighboring districts sealed off the area and closed in on the gang. As a result, five gang members were immediately arrested without incident and the injured man was taken to hospital. However, the shooter led police on a high-speed chase in a rented Mazda.
When police eventually stopped and attempted to arrest the man, he attacked them with a meat cleaver. But he was overpowered, and no police officers came to harm.
The man had earlier concealed the machine gun, knife and other small weapons near a mosque, where they were later recovered.
Monitoring the incident was Jeddah police chief Saleh Al-Olayan, who said the case was being treated as a criminal matter and not a terror-related incident. Police would not comment further.
Muhammad Radwan Rafiq, 37, a resident of the district, said: “I have lived in the area for four years. Although I don’t know anything about this particular incident, I have noticed that crime appears to be on the rise everywhere.
“I used to feel safe walking at night with my wife and children, but now I worry. Perhaps this is a result of the economic hardship many Saudis are facing.”
