 Two wanted al-Qaida militants were among 10 extremists killed in clashes with police during a double suicide car bombing in the Saudi capital, officials said Thursday, portraying the attack as a plot that was wrecked by the earlier capture of a militant. The car bombs exploded Wednesday night in the Saudi capital, targeting the Interior Ministry and a recruiting center for the kingdom's anti-terrorism forces. But the vehicles were unable to get close to their targets and the blasts killed only the three suicide bombers, said a ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki. Seventeen security officers and several bystanders were wounded. Saudi TV had reported the blast outside the ministry killed a passing limousine driver, but al-Turki said he was only wounded.
"He's dead!"
"He ain't dead! He's only wounded!"
"Oh, yeah? Where's the left side of him?" |
Al-Turki said the plotters had to carry out the bombings earlier than they had intended because a militant was captured after a shootout in Riyadh a day earlier. "It is for sure that the terrorist operation was executed hastily," he said. "It seemed to be programmed to be executed at a different time and in a different fashion." Ten militants were killed in two gunbattles Wednesday — three of them just before the bombs went off, then seven who were tracked to a Riyadh hideout soon after the blasts, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
"Blackie! Yez gots to hide us!"
"You fools! Why did you come here? Were you followed?"
"Of course we wasn't [BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!]... followed." |
The man arrested Tuesday provided information that led police to the safehouse, al-Turki said. Among those killed were a top al-Qaida operative in Saudi Arabia, Sultan al-Otaibi, and Bandar bin Abdel Rahman al-Dikheel — both of them Saudis on a list issued last December of 26 most wanted militants, the ministry said. Al-Otaibi was known for sheltering militants and providing them with cars and explosives, and he prepared car bombs used in a Nov. 8 attack in Riyadh that killed 17 people and wounded 122, it said. Al-Dikheel was skilled in making car bombs and was the brother of Faisal al-Dikheel, who was believed to have been al-Qaida's deputy leader in Saudi Arabia before he was killed in June, the ministry said.
| They'll probably run out of Dikheels about the same time they run out of al-Ghamdis... |
More than half the figures on the most wanted list have been killed or captured. The Interior Ministry blamed Wednesday's attacks on a "deviant group" — a term the government has used in the past to describe al-Qaida. The militants' attacks have often struck Arabs and Muslims, and Saudi officials pressed that point about Wednesday's attack, scoffing at extremists' claims that "infidels" are their targets. "This is a heinous and disturbing crime," Prince Ahmed bin Abdel Aziz, the deputy interior minister, told Saudi TV. "They are not attacking 'infidels.' This is fighting Muslims and citizens." |