RIYADH, 20 January 2004 — Saudi security forces arrested a number of suspects after a shootout with unidentified gunmen in the capital on Sunday, Riyadh’s police chief said yesterday.
The incident began on Sunday afternoon when a man sped away after police tried to check the vehicle’s plate number in the eastern Al-Nassim district of the city.
“A person accompanying the driver then opened fire at the police patrol,” the police chief said in a statement.
Police exchanged fire with the gunmen, whose vehicle broke down. “The driver and his companion later stopped in a crowded area, hijacked the car of a citizen at gunpoint and fled,” he added.
The police official, who was not identified, said there were no casualties.
“A number of suspects were arrested and the incident is still being followed up,” police said without giving details.
According to Okaz daily, the militants used the citizen as a shield to protect them from police fire. Police cordoned off the neighborhood and intensified their hunt for the suspects.
Al-Riyadh Arabic daily said there were two men inside the car when patrol police was trying to check the vehicle. A third suspect, who was also armed, had entered a stationery store nearby. When he saw his companions escaping after the encounter with the police, he also opened fire, the paper said, adding that the intense gunfire damaged one of the police vehicles.
The paper said the incident took place in a crowded area and the presence of a large number of onlookers prevented police from immediately arresting the suspects.
Saudi security forces have repeatedly clashed with suspected militants in the past months as they have stepped up a campaign against terror suspects with possible links with Al-Qaeda.
Hundreds of suspected militants have been rounded up since last May’s triple bombings of residential compounds in Riyadh, which killed 35 people, including nine bombers.
A car bomb went off at another expatriate housing complex in the Saudi capital in November, killing at least 18 people, mostly Arabs.
