Top Riyadh blasts suspect killed

Saudi Arabia said a key suspect in the May 12 Riyadh bombings and three other "wanted terrorists" were killed in a shootout with security forces before dawn yesterday in the north of the desert kingdom.

The Interior Ministry said Turki Nasser al-Dandani, who topped a list of 19 suspected al Qaeda militants issued days before the triple suicide bombings, died when security forces stormed the home of a preacher where he was hiding.

A ministry statement read on Saudi television said Dandani, a Saudi national, and four other suspects opened fire on security forces with automatic rifles and threw hand grenades at them. Security forces fired back, killing four of the five men.

The fifth man gave himself up. Three others who had been trying to smuggle the group out of the country were also arrested, the ministry statement said.

A Saudi official said earlier that Dandani had blown himself up after a manhunt in the north of the country, near Saudi Arabia's borders with Iraq and Jordan.

His death came exactly a week after the alleged explosives expert behind the May 12 bombings, Ali Abdulrahman al-Faqa'asi al-Ghamdi, surrendered himself to Saudi authorities.

Thirty-five people, including nine Americans, were killed in the blasts that ripped through residential compounds and which the United States and Saudi Arabia blame on al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has intensified its crackdown on the militant group since the May 12 attacks.

Security forces have clashed with militants in the holy city of Mecca, seizing a flat they said was booby trapped and filled with weapons, and arrested at least 124 people since the start of May.

Western sources in Saudi Arabia say authorities are providing unprecedented security cooperation in tackling Saudi-based al Qaeda elements and those who helped finance the group, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Thursday's raid took place in the town of Suwayr, just over 100 miles (160 km) from the desert border with Iraq and Jordan.

"Security forces raided the house of an imam of one of the mosques in Suwayr in Jouf province where five wanted terrorists were hiding," the Interior Ministry said.

"The terrorists opened fire with heavy automatic rifle fire and hand grenades. The security forces returned fire," it said. Two of the dead men were Saudis and the other two Kuwaitis -- one of them on the list of 19 wanted men.

The imam of the mosque gave himself up before the gunfight and the fifth "terrorist" also surrendered. Two members of the security forces were slightly injured.