Saudi security forces have killed two suspected militants said to be linked to the weekend gun and hostage-taking rampage in Khobar that left 22 dead. The two were hunted down in the remote Hada region of Taif in the west of the kingdom after they attacked troops.
| These were the guys they caught up with near Mecca we reported on yesterday. |
In a separate incident in the capital Riyadh, two cars carrying US military training personnel were shot at. The violence follows fresh threats by al-Qaeda to "cleanse" the Arabian peninsula of non-Muslims. It is not clear how the men killed on Wednesday were linked to the carnage in Khobar, but Saudi-owned television station al-Arabiya said the pair were al-Qaeda gunmen.
Guns and ammunition were found on their bodies and one of them was in drag disguised as a woman, al-Arabiya reported.
| Kinda makes you wonder exactly how many Soddy women are really women, doesn't it? |
A driver was slightly hurt in the Riyadh shooting, when attackers hiding behind a row of parked cars opened fire on two vehicles coming out of the Eskan training base. The vehicles were carrying US military advisers working with the Saudi National Guard who sped back into the base after the attack. The gunmen escaped.
| Of course they did, it's Saudiland |
Three militants were reported to have slipped through a security cordon after the Khobar attack which ended on Sunday. A tribal lashkar massive manhunt is under way, as more details emerged about how they had escaped a siege by large numbers of security forces. A security adviser to the Saudi royal family, Nawaf Obaid, said the Saudi authorities had been fooled into believing that accomplices would blow up the entire housing compound where the militants were holding dozens of hostages. "It was a deal, and the orders came from senior people who said: 'Let them out'," he said in remarks quoted by Reuters.
| Nobody does nothing without orders from on high in the Magic Kingdom |
"It was basically a call between storming the compound and having more hostages die, or doing the bargain they did."
| Thereby having more hostages die later... |
The attackers had already killed 22 people with guns and knives, most of them foreigners whom the attackers had identified as non-Muslims. It is still not clear how the gunmen entered the heavily fortified luxury Oasis Resort compound, where most of the victims died.
| It's just such a mystery... |
The leader of the gunmen was wounded and arrested, the Saudi interior ministry has said.
| Never to be seen again, at least by anybody we can trust |
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