Saudi Police Kill 2 Al Qaeda Leaders, 2 Others in Clash

Two of the most wanted Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia, including a Saudi national identified by authorities as a key planner of the May 12 suicide attacks in Riyadh, were killed Thursday along with two other fugitives during a gun battle with police.

Turki Nasser Dandani, the Saudi citizen, detonated a hand grenade as Saudi authorities closed in on him in the town of Sowair, in the northern province of Al Jawf, about 560 miles north of Riyadh near the border with Jordan, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

Abdulrahman Mansour Jabarah, a Kuwaiti of Iraqi descent, also was killed in the early-morning clash with police who stormed the home of a cleric who was hiding them.

U.S. officials described both men as leaders of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia; Jabarah also had direct links to former Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who until his March 1 arrest in Pakistan was leading the terrorist network’s efforts to re-establish its global network of cells.

“These guys are both significant players, guys well worth taking off the streets,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dandani “was on the run,” the U.S. official said. “They were getting close, and rather than let them take him, he set off a hand grenade in close proximity to his body.”

The confrontation occurred just after 5 a.m., when Saudi security forces conducting a nationwide hunt for Dandani surrounded the house where he, Jabarah and several other wanted men were hiding.

After evacuating the area, Saudi authorities used loudspeakers to urge the men to surrender. One suspect, identified as Hassan Hadi Dossari, a Saudi national, gave himself up.

But Dandani and the others opened fire and lobbed grenades at the officers, according to a statement released by the Saudi Interior Ministry.

In the ensuing gun battle, Dandani, Jabarah, Saudi national Amash Subaibie and Rajih Hassan Ajmi, a Kuwaiti, were killed, according to Nail al Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

Saudi authorities later arrested three men whom they described as accomplices attempting to smuggle Dandani and Jabarah out of the country. The embassy spokesman identified them as two Saudis, Mohammed Sulaiman Sagaabi and Nasser Ruwaili, and a Syrian, Mohammed Badr Hazbar.

Two police officers were slightly wounded, the Saudi Embassy said in a statement.

The U.S. official said Dandani played a “senior management” role in the coordinated attacks in May, which killed 34, including nine terrorists, at three Riyadh residential compounds favored by Westerners.

“He was a significant Al Qaeda operative in Saudi Arabia. He was undoubtedly connected to the Riyadh bombings and was known to have ties to senior Al Qaeda figures, particularly Saudi-based ones, including some of the others who have been killed or captured,” the U.S. official said.

U.S. and Saudi authorities said Thursday that they did not know whether Dandani, 29, personally participated in the May 12 attacks, but they said that he helped plan and finance the bombings. Several of the attackers escaped during a gunfight with private security guards and are believed to be at large.

Saudi officials also described Dandani as “the No. 1 figure on the wanted list” of 19 suspected Al Qaeda members, which was released after the discovery of a large arms cache in Riyadh, the capital, on May 6.

“He was one of the top Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia and one of the masterminds of the May 12 Riyadh bombings,” the Interior Ministry statement said.

Thursday’s shootout came on the heels of other breakthroughs in the joint Saudi-U.S. efforts against terrorism in the kingdom, which have intensified since the May 12 attacks.

The home of Islam’s two most sacred sites, and the birthplace of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabia has long been a hotbed of Al Qaeda activity.

But the CIA and the FBI have actively worked with Saudi authorities to crack at least three Al Qaeda cells.

Saudi authorities arrested Zafer Abdul Rahman Shihri on Tuesday, three days after capturing Ali Abdulrahman Said Alfagsy Ghamdi, who was identified by Saudi authorities as an explosives expert and the suspected mastermind of the Riyadh attacks.

Ghamdi, also known as Abu Bakr, is believed to have worked closely with Dandani. He was arrested after surrendering at the home of Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayif.

On May 31, the Saudi security forces killed Yousif Salih Fahad Ayeeri, a major Al Qaeda operational planner and fund-raiser known as “Swift Sword,” as he tried to escape capture.

“We have had enormous success,” Jubeir said. We now have “about 125 people arrested since May 12, including about 50 who were linked to the bombing, were associates, or who are Al Qaeda members.”