Mohammed Alkhereiji • Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 4 July 2003 — One of the leading Al-Qaeda fugitives, Turki Nasser Al-Dandani, 27, and three of his companions have died in an exchange of gunfire with police after being surrounded in the Al-Jouf region, the Saudi Press Agency reported quoting an official source in the Ministry of Information. Earlier wire reports had said Al-Dandani committed suicide.

The incident occurred at five in the morning yesterday in Zuhair, 560 miles north of Riyadh, when police stormed an imam’s home opposite a mosque suspected of housing five wanted terrorists.

The terrorists fired and threw hand grenades at security forces, the official said. Security forces fired back, and this resulted in the deaths of Al-Dandani, Rajeh Al-Ajami and Adul Rahman Jabara — both Kuwaiti nationals — and Amaash Al-Subaie, a Saudi national.

Two security officers were also injured, neither of them seriously.

The report said that before the fire exchange security forces by loudhailer ordered the men at the home of Musaad Hamdam Faleh Al-Ruwaily, the imam of the mosque, to surrender. The imam and another suspect, Hassan Hadi Al-Dosary, gave themselves up.

The source also told SPA that three wanted suspects were caught after the gunfire. They are Mohammed Al-Suqabi and Nassir Al-Ruwaily, both Saudis, and Mahmoud Hazbar, a Syrian national.

Al-Dandani, a member of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network, was being pursued for his alleged involvement in the suicide bombings of Westerners’ housing compounds in Riyadh on May 12, which killed 25 people as well as nine attackers.

He became the most wanted man in the Kingdom after last week’s arrest of the suspected mastermind of the attacks, Ali Abdul Rahman Al-Faqaasi Al-Ghamdi. Al-Ghamdi surrendered on Saturday at the home of Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed ibn Naif.

Interior Minister Prince Naif said at the time that “some important suspects” were still at large, and Al-Dandani’s name topped the list mentioned in news reports. Al-Dandani was also first on the wanted list of 19 suspected militants that police published after the discovery of an arms cache in Riyadh on May 6.

Only last week, Al-Dandani’s mother had publicly urged her son to hand himself in to the authorities.

“I appeal to Turki to give himself up like Al-Ghamdi did ... If you want to see me happy and satisfied, please hurry up and turn yourself in,” Eida Raji Saleh Al-Balhoud, 70, told Okaz newspaper. “They will reach you sooner or later,” she added.

US counterterrorism officials in Washington predicted that Al-Ghamdi’s arrest would severely hamper Al-Qaeda’s operations in the Kingdom, and Al-Dandani’s death is likely to further diminish the group’s capacity.

Prince Naif said on Tuesday security forces had detained 124 people since the May 12 attacks in a major sweep that has seen armed police manning checkpoints in major cities, checking identity papers and searching cars.