One policeman was killed and three others wounded in clashes with militants in a town northeast of Riyadh, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said Friday. The unidentified official, quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency, also said a number of suspects in Thursday's shooting were arrested. Two police patrols checking a report that armed suspects were in a house in al-Baradah, 250 miles northeast of Riyadh, were fired on by suspects in a vehicle as they approached the house, the official said, adding that a later search of the house revealed large amounts of explosives and weapons. No more details were available. Al-Arabiya TV reported Friday that one of the three wounded police officers was in critical condition.
Thursday's clashes came a day after the surrender of a wanted militant identified by Saudi authorities as Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Moqrin. Al-Moqrin was accused in a May attack in the eastern city of Khobar that killed 22 people, most of them foreign oil industry workers. |