JEDDAH, 31 May 2006 — Two Saudis on the Interior Ministry’s most-wanted list of suspected Al-Qaeda militants are being held in Kurdistan, according to a report carried by Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News.
Abdullah Muhammad Al-Ramyan and Muhammad Saleh Al-Rashoodi were arrested in September 2003 as they crossed into Iraq’s Kurdish region from Turkey after transiting through Jordan and Syria, the Arabic daily reported.
The daily published pictures of the two men, saying it interviewed them at their place of detention in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil.
The Saudi pair “confessed ... that they came to ... join the holy war after the fall of Baghdad” to US-led foreign forces in April 2003, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Kurdish police general Ismat Ertush as saying.
Ramyan and Rashoodi figure on the list of wanted terror suspects issued by the ministry in June 2005. The ministry had stated that 21 among the wanted list terror suspects were out of the country when it was published.
With the incarceration of Ramyan and Rashoodi in Iraq, only 17 on the list remain at large. The rest have been either killed or arrested or have surrendered to Saudi authorities.
