JEDDAH, 10 June 2006 — A border guard officer in the southern Najran region was killed Thursday in a gunbattle with drug traffickers who attempted to smuggle 500 kilograms of hashish into the Kingdom.
Najran Governor Prince Mishaal ibn Saud commended the heroic act of the security officers in chasing the smugglers in the desert and preventing the entry of a large quantity of drugs into the country.
Police seized 500 kilograms of hashish in one of the largest drug busts in the Kingdom this year following the 20-minute gunfight.
Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, the spokesman of the Interior Ministry, said the officer died in the gunfight with drug traffickers after they crossed the Saudi border. A drug trafficker also died in the firefight.
“The car driver sneaked into Saudi territory through the desert and did not respond to calls through microphones to stop the vehicle,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted the spokesman as saying. The driver and another man who was accompanying him then started firing at the border guards.
Al-Turki named Abdul Rahman Ibrahim Al-Qahtani as the dead police officer. He said security officers injured and arrested the second trafficker. “Police found 500 kilograms of hashish, a machine gun and a Kalashnikov assault rifle along with a large amount of live ammunition, four phones and other communication devices,” he explained.
According to informed security sources, the smugglers entered the Kingdom through the Harsha border post, north of Kharkheer. Maj. Gen. Saad Al-Shahrani, acting commander of border guards in the region, said the slain officer belonged to Al-Harth center. He said the border guards had spotted two cars and a search was on for the second one.
Last November, border guards seized more than two tons of hashish on an island off the Kingdom’s eastern coast in one the largest drug hauls in recent times.
