RIYADH, 12 August 2003 — Ten suspected terrorists on Sunday fired on police before fleeing from a rest house used to store weapons and explosives, Arab News learned yesterday.
Sources told Arab News that a bearded man failed to stop his car at a police checkpoint and opened fire when police gave chase.
After a protracted car chase, the fugitive stopped at a rest house near the Saudi German Hospital in the Al-Amana district in the north of the city.
Police surrounded the rest house and reinforcements were called in.
The source said 10 suspects, all armed with machine guns, fled the rest house and fired haphazardly at police cars before escaping. No security officers were injured.
A search of the rest house revealed a large cache of weapons and explosives and several ID cards.
The Interior Ministry yesterday confirmed Sunday’s shootout. A ministry official said the fugitive who sped away from the checkpoint stopped his car near a rest house and then got out carrying a weapon. “Immediately afterward, two cars emerged from behind the rest house and those inside started firing at random,” the official said.
Last month, security forces exchanged fire with suspected militants at a farm in Al-Qasim after learning from intelligence sources that some of the 19 Al-Qaeda members wanted in connection with the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh were hiding there. Six terror suspects and two police officers were killed in the shootout. The Interior Ministry said one of the Saudis — Ahmed ibn Nasser Al-Dakheel — killed in the shooting was on the wanted list.
Apart from Al-Dakheel, Kareem Olayyan Al-Ramthan Al-Harbi, Saud Aamir Suleiman Al-Qurashi and Muhammad Ghazi Saleem Al-Harbi, all Saudis, and Isa Kamal Yousuf Khater and Isa Saleh Ali Ahmed, from Chad, were killed in the Al-Qasim incident.
The six were wanted by security agents for their involvement in a shootout in Makkah’s Khalediya district two months ago, the ministry said.
The statement said police arrested four people — Abdullah Hilal Al-Harbi, Muhammad Hilal Al-Harbi, Dhaifallah Hilal Al-Harbi and Abdul Ilah Hilal Al-Harbi — for providing shelter to the wanted men.
The ministry has urged the other wanted militants to surrender and warned the public against sheltering or sympathizing with wanted terror suspects.
The 19 individuals on the wanted list are considered by the authorities to be part of a group that had direct connections with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
At least 10 of the suspects have been killed or captured, including the No. 1 on the list, Turki Nasser Al-Dandani, who was killed along with three other militants in a five-hour gunbattle in northern Saudi Arabia.
