RIYADH, 13 April 2004 — A security officer was killed and a militant gunned down during a clash in an eastern neighborhood of Riyadh yesterday evening, an Interior Ministry official said.
Four other security personnel sustained minor injuries during the shootout in the Al-Faiha district, the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.
Later police tried to track down three other suspected militants who fled, witnesses said.
“Security forces are combing the area, but the exchanges of fire have died down,” a witness said some three hours after the clash began.
“Patrol police identified a car carrying two terror suspects and tracked it down to the Al-Faiha neighborhood, and the two opened fire on security officers as they stopped in front of a villa they were using as a hide-out,” the official said.
“Meanwhile a group of militants came out and started firing arms including rocket propelled grenades.”
“This resulted in an exchange of fire and the deaths of a militant and a security officer,” he added.
Eyewitnesses said the terrorists fled into a villa after being chased by security officials, leaving their jeep in front. “The terrorists blew up the vehicle and took cover,” they said.
Dozens of police cars were seen speeding to the area.
Security forces blocked off access to the neighborhood, keeping crowds of curious onlookers at bay.
Arab News saw dozens of bullet-ridden cars in the area where the shootout took place.
Floodlights mounted on Civil Defense vehicles lit the entire district, focusing on the terrorist hide-out.
Security forces later in the night recovered a number of hand grenades left behind by the terrorists.
The whole area smelled of the gasoline leaking from vehicles in the vicinity whose gas tanks were pierced by ricocheting bullets, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the terrorists managed to escape the dragnet. They then forced the driver of a Caprice at gunpoint to part with his car and escaped to Al-Naseem district.
The last in a series of gunbattles between security forces and suspected militants occurred in the capital a week ago, when security forces gunned down a militant and wounded another on April 5, also in the same district.
Both were wanted on terror-related charges, but neither was on a list of 26 most-wanted suspects — since reduced to 22 after the death or capture of four of them — issued after the November 2003 bombings in Riyadh.
