RIYADH, Aug 5 (AFP) - Fares al-Zahrani, one of the most wanted militants in Saudi Arabia, was arrested by security forces Thursday evening, the interior ministry said.
"Security forces... were able on Thursday evening to capture one of the heads of strife and an advocate of takfeer and bombings... Fares bin Ahmed bin Shwail al-Zahrani," said a ministry official in a statement read on state television, which interrupted its programs to air the announcement.
"Takfeer" means branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimize violence against them.
The interior ministry official said another person was arrested along with Zahrani, but his identity would not be disclosed "for the sake of the (national) interest."
The arrest of Zahrani, a top figure on a 26-strong list of most-wanted militants suspected of links to the Al-Qaeda terror network, had been reported earlier Thursday night by Dubai-based, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television.
Security forces were able to "prevent the two men from using the weapons they were carrying and capture them alive without anyone being hurt," the official said.
He said Zahrani had "questioned the nation's ulema (Muslim scholars)" and incited militants to "kill security forces."
The reference was to Zahrani's interpretations of Islamic tenets justifying the use of violence on religious grounds.
The official said security forces were determined to track down extremists, "get them out of their dens and put them before the law of God (sharia, or Islamic law)."
He did not say where Zahrani, 27, was captured, but Al-Arabiya said he surrendered to security forces "without putting up any resistance" in a park in the southern region of Abha after a chase of several hours.
His capture brings down to 11 the number of militants on the most-wanted list who remain at large.
The others have been killed in clashes with security forces or surrendered to authorities since the list was issued last December.
Zahrani's arrest comes one and a half months after security forces killed the local Al-Qaeda chief, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin.
Muqrin and three henchmen were shot dead in Riyadh on June 18, shortly after their "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula" group posted photos on websites of the beheading of US engineer Paul Johnson, who had been abducted in the Saudi capital.
Johnson's execution was the latest in a spate of attacks on Western expatriates in Saudi Arabia which began in May, a year after suspected Al-Qaeda sympathizers launched a wave of bombings in the capital. Some 90 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the violence of the past 15 months.
Zahrani is among presumed Islamist extremists who spurned a one-month amnesty offered by King Fahd on June 23 to militants who turn themselves in.
Only six militants took up the pardon offer and just one of those figured on the most-wanted list.
Saudi authorities, who have rounded up hundreds of terror suspects, have warned that militants who do not give themselves up will be crushed.
On Tuesday, an Irishman was shot dead in his office in the Saudi capital. Although the motives of the murder have not yet been established, the killing raised fears of fresh violence against Westerners after a lull since Muqrin's killing.