JEDDAH, 1 March 2006 — The leader of the Al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia was among the five terrorists gunned down in a shootout in Al-Yarmouk district in Riyadh on Monday, said the Interior Ministry. Fahd Faraj Al-Joweir, 36, who was trained in Afghanistan and had taken charge of the network in the Kingdom after Moroccan Younis Al-Hayari, the former commander in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed in a shootout in Riyadh on July 3.
[...] The slain leader was No. 2 on a list of the 36 most-wanted Al-Qaeda-linked suspects published last June by the Interior Ministry.
Officials refused to disclose the identity of a sixth suspect who was arrested in Al-Rawabi district, also in eastern Riyadh, during the same security operation in which Al-Joweir was killed. Four of the terrorists killed, including Al-Joweir, have been identified. The fifth is yet to be identified.
Two of the three slain militants identified in the statement as Ibrahim Al-Muteir, 22, and Abdullah Al-Shammari, 25, were also on the list of 36 most wanted men. The statement identified the fourth man as Jaffal Al-Shammari, 28, who, along with Al-Joweir and Abdullah Al-Shammari, took part in the attack on the oil processing plant in Abqaiq on Friday, the ministry said. |