JEDDAH, 27 August 2006 — The four militants arrested in Jeddah on Monday were part of a group of 34 men rounded up in different operations around the Kingdom, the Interior Ministry said yesterday.
The four suspects surrendered after security forces besieged a building in Al-Jamia district. No one was killed or reported injured during a 17-hour gunbattle between the security forces and the militants.
“Security work led to the arrest of 34 people of different nationalities in Makkah, Madinah, Riyadh and Jeddah because they belonged to the ‘deviant group’ and had links to inmates who escaped from Malaz prison,” said the ministry statement, referring to the escape of seven prisoners from the detention center near Riyadh in July. Two of the men apprehended on Monday were identified as one of the seven men who escaped from the prison. The other five are still at large.
Although the Interior Ministry has not officially identified the two men, local media named them as Turki Al-Mutairi and Ghazi Al-Otaibi. The other two men arrested Monday have not been identified. The statement said weapons and homemade explosives were found in the apartment.
“They were using the apartment as a hide-out and as a factory for instruments of death and destruction,” the statement said.
