RIYADH, 29 April 2004 — An Indian expatriate, who escaped this week from the group of terrorists hiding out in caves near Al-Ammariya, has identified one of his captors as Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin, head of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, a source told Arab News.
The Indian was held by the five terrorists who shot dead a member of the Al-Mujahedeen unit and wounded another two weeks ago near Al-Uyaynah. He said the group forced him to carry their belongings and to help them with directions in the rugged landscape of Al-Ammariya, 35 km northeast of the capital.
He later gave his captors the slip and told police officers at a security checkpoint of the group’s whereabouts. The identification of Al-Muqrin came from police photos of the most wanted terrorists. The man said that his captors were desperate for food supplies and had resorted to eating desert plants and drinking rain water in order to survive.
On March 16, Khaled Ali Haj, the former Al-Qaeda leader in the Kingdom, and Ibrahim Al-Mizyani, wanted for security reasons, were killed in a Nissan Patrol during a shootout with security officers in Riyadh’s Al-Naseem district after they failed to stop at a security checkpoint.
Officers found the vehicle laden with six hand grenades, two machine guns, 10 machine gun magazines, three 9 mm pistols, and SR516,000. A statement from the Ministry of Interior later stated that no police officers were injured or killed in the shootout.
Meanwhile, a recent raid on a villa in Al-Naseem district in Riyadh by security officials unearthed a secret polyclinic and an operation theater used by terrorists. The villa contained several beds, medical equipment, medicines, phones, a classroom, and a storage room with 3 months of food supplies. The two-story villa also had a garage where the terrorists trained on how to wire car bombs and prepare hand grenades.
