Top Militant Died in Riyadh Attack

The Saudi government said Saturday that one of the kingdom’s most wanted militants was among five suspected Al Qaeda members who carried out last week’s suicide car bombings in Riyadh.

The militants detonated bomb-rigged cars outside the heavily fortified Interior Ministry and a security unit Wednesday.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has been rocked by a surge of Al Qaeda violence since May 2003 that has killed about 170 people, including Westerners.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA that the dead bombers included Abdullah Saud Sebaie, who was on a list of 26 most wanted in the kingdom. He was the 20th on the list to have been killed or captured.

Mohammed Muhsen Assimi, Dakheel Abdul-Aziz Ubeid and Nasser Aali Muteiri were also killed, and a fifth dead militant had not been identified, it added.

Sebaie played a part in the May 2004 attack in the oil city of Khobar that killed 22 people as well as the November 2003 bombing of the Muhaya residential compound in Riyadh that killed at least 18, the ministry said.

Ten other militants were slain by Saudi security forces last week in raids and shootouts.

State television showed pictures of nine bloodied bodies.