RIYADH, Aug 11 (AFP) - Saudi security forces on Wednesday shot dead a suspected Islamic extremist in Mecca, the site of Islam's holiest sites, an interior ministry official said.
"Security men spotted a suspect in ... the holy city of Mecca. He threw a grenade at them when they approached him, so he was fired at," said the unnamed official, in a statement quoted by the official news agency SPA.
The suspect was killed and a security agent was "mildly wounded", the statement added.
It did not name the suspect or give his age, and it was unclear whether he was on the kingdom's list of 26 most-wanted suspected militants that was issued last December.
On August 5, a key suspected Al-Qaeda militant was arrested in the southwestern city of Abha.
The arrest of Fares al-Zahrani came six weeks after security forces killed local Al-Qaeda commander Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, following a spate of attacks on Western expatriates that were claimed by affiliates of the terror network.
Like the majority of fellow suspects on the most-wanted list, Zahrani, believed to be in his early 30s, spurned a one-month amnesty offered to Islamic militants by King Fahd on June 23.
Zahrani's capture cut to 11 the number of militants on the most-wanted list still at large. The rest have been killed in clashes with security forces or turned themselves in to authorities.
Some 90 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in violence over the past 15 months.
Only six militants took up the king's amnesty offer and just one of those figured on the most-wanted list.