Security forces are searching for a group of wanted militants, possibly including the chief of the al-Qaida terrorist network in Saudi Arabia, in a mountainous area northwest of Riyadh, a security official said Monday. Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin, Saudi Arabia's most wanted militant, is believed to be holed up with four to five other terror suspects in a mountain area known as al-Muzair'a in al-Hassayah, a town 18 miles northwest of Riyadh, the official said on condition of anonymity. The official told The Associated Press that about 200 counterterrorism officers with heavily armored vehicles have been surrounding a two-square-mile area since late Sunday, while helicopters were seen hovering over the area Monday trying to spot the militants' exact location.
| "Which way did he go, George? Which way did he go?" |
Witnesses said police have cordoned off al-Hassayah and are keeping journalists from entering the area.
| Don't want any witnesses to the upcoming escape. |
U.S. and Saudi officials believe al-Moqrin is al-Qaida's top figure in Saudi Arabia and the mastermind of a Nov. 8 bombing of a Riyadh housing compound that killed 17 people, most of them Arabs and Muslims working in Saudi Arabia. The operation in al-Hassayah follows last Wednesday's suicide bombing of a government security building in Riyadh. That attack killed five people and wounded 148. On Friday, Saudi forces fought militants in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, killing five and capturing a sixth. Four of the five dead were on the government's list of 26 most wanted militants, according to an Interior Ministry statement.
| Amazing how being on the receiving end of jihad focuses the mind. |
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