Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it had taken into custody a man on its 36 most wanted list of suspected al Qaeda members.
The interior ministry indicated that Adnan bin Abdullah bin Faris al Omari was handed over to the Saudi authorities from another country, which it did not name.
His name had appeared on a list of 36 suspected terrorists published on 28 th June along with 15 other al Qaeda members believed to be hiding inside the Kingdom and 20 alleged terrorists thought to be outside Saudi Arabia , including 15 Saudi nationals, 3 from Chad , a Kuwaiti, a Yemeni and a Mauritanian.
With the latest ministry statement, the number of most wanted terrorists reached 27, after the suspect Fayiz Ibrahim Ayyub handed himself to the Saudi embassy in Beirut and the alleged leader of al Qaeda in Saudi, the Moroccan Younis al-Hayari, was killed in armed clashes with the authorities in al Rawda, east of the capital on 3 rd July 2005.
Sanaa handed over the Yemeni Zayd Hassan Mohammad Humaid to the Saudi authorities after discovering he was incarcerated under a different name. On 26th July 2005 , Mohammad Said al Siyam al Amri was detained in Medina paving the way for a number of arrests of suspected terrorists whose names are not on the most wanted list.
Most recently, armed clashes between holed up militants and the security forces in the al Mubarakiya district in the eastern city of Dammam, on 4 th September 2005, resulted in the death of Zayd al Samari, Saleh al Faridi al Harbi, Sultan al Haseri and Nayef al Jahishi al Shamri.
With the latest announcement, the number of wanted militants believed to be in hiding currently stands at 9 while the number of those thought to be outside the Kingdom is 18.