Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Security officers fought an intense gun battle with suspected al-Qaeda militants Monday, killing five people sought in last week’s brazen attempt to blow up a huge oil-processing complex with car bombs.
A sixth suspect was arrested uninjured during a simultaneous predawn raid in the same part of the capital, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
“We think all the men involved had something to do with the Abqaiq attempt,” the ministry’s chief spokesman, Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, told The Associated Press in Dubai, referring to Friday’s failed attack on the world’s biggest oil stabilization plant.
The assault in eastern Saudi Arabia was the first ever on the kingdom’s vital oil infrastructure and caused oil prices to jump $2 a barrel. Al-Qaeda’s Saudi branch claimed responsibility in an Internet posting and warned of more suicide attacks on oil facilities.
But after a wave of spectacular terrorist attacks in 2003, Saudi security forces have largely had al-Qaeda on the run, killing or capturing hundreds of militants and causing a big drop-off in the toll of death and destruction from the group’s assaults.
Al-Turki said Monday’s dual police raids came after surveillance operations revealed the suspected militants were in the Yarmouk area of Riyadh.
The Interior Ministry said gunfire erupted when officers confronted five militants at a rental house in eastern Riyadh, which the statement said was being used for meetings to plan al-Qaeda operations.
The sixth man was captured elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Al-Turki said security forces suffered no casualties.
