Mohammed Alkhereiji, Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 24 September 2003 — At least one Saudi policeman and three militants, including a wanted terror suspect, were killed in a shootout at a hospital compound in Jizan in the south of the Kingdom yesterday.

An Interior Ministry statement read out on Saudi television said five militants were involved in the incident, in which four other policemen were slightly wounded.

“Two of the terrorists surrendered and three of them were killed,” the statement said.

The wanted militant killed was identified as Sultan Jibran Al-Qahtani, who was on a list of 19 Al-Qaeda suspects issued in early May shortly before the Riyadh bombings, which are blamed on Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.

“The militants were intending to carry out terrorist operations and were armed with machine guns and hand grenades. They were asked to surrender but started firing at security forces,” the statement said.

It is believed that security forces earlier raided a nearby farm where a large group of suspected militants had been holed up.

The gunmen subsequently fled the village, in the northeast of the province on the road to Abu Arish town, and entered the local hospital compound.

Police have been engaged in bloody clashes with militants since the Kingdom intensified its crackdown on militants following the May 12 suicide bombings in the capital that killed 35 people.

A Saudi official had earlier told Reuters that at least two policemen were killed in the clash at a residential compound of King Fahd Hospital. He said the gunmen had taken hostages but that the hostages were freed unharmed.

But Jizan Governor Prince Muhammad ibn Nasser denied reports that the militants had taken hostages.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, after visiting the injured policemen at the hospital, the governor named the police officer killed as Hussein Mufreh Hanthol.

“All the injured officers are stable,” he said. He urged Yemen to take measures to prevent smuggling of weapons and explosives to the Kingdom.

The governor said the Kingdom would not show any leniency in the clampdown on terrorists. “Yesterday’s operation was carried out with minimum casualties,” he pointed out.

“Security officers took control of the militants without causing any harm to the residents despite the intense shooting by the militants,” the ministry statement said.

About 3,000 hospital staff live in the large residential compound.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar ibn Sultan has stated that Saudi Arabia had tried to move against potential terrorist elements at home well before Sept. 11, 2001 but had met resistance from the US State Department.

Prince Bandar told a foreign affairs group here that the resistance came from US State Department officials who were “telling us we were terrible to these dissidents.”

Speaking to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, he suggested the Saudi government was aware of and sought to act against potential terrorism in the country but that state department officials concerned with human rights labeled the people “dissidents” and criticized Saudis for trying to crack down on them.

Prince Bandar has played a key role in relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia since Sept. 11, when 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers were identified as Saudi nationals.

While the Saudi government says it has done everything possible to assist with the US war on terror, some US lawmakers have criticized the Kingdom for providing only limited cooperation.

The ambassador said that two days before the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, “we were telling you they were terrorists (and) the State Department was telling us that we were terrible to these dissidents.” He said he understood because “what looked so clear and obvious after Sept. 11 wasn’t so clear before ... and trust me, the same is true in Saudi Arabia.”

Prince Bandar said efforts by Saudi Arabia to track funneling of money to groups with terrorist ties were thwarted to some degree by US financial regulations and privacy safeguards surrounding US financial institutions.

“We have cooperated 100 percent with the United States in the fight against terrorism, not for the sake of the United States but for the sake of protecting our people. (Osama) Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and people who think like that are not the only problems.”

— Additional reporting by Badr Almotawa of Asharq Al-Awsat