KUWAIT CITY, Aug 16 (AFP) - Saudi Arabia, rocked by a wave of deadly attacks on its soil for more than a year, has defeated the terror "masterminds" and is now pursuing the last of the suspected militants, the kingdom's crown prince said in an interview published here Monday.
"We directly targeted the heads of the snakes to cut them ... Many of them were killed, some arrested and the rest surrendered," Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who is also the kingdom's de facto ruler, told Al-Siyassa newspaper.
"We have overcome the terrorism stage. What you are seeing today is the liquidation of the last pockets and hunting for the remaining (terrorists)," he added.
Prince Abdullah vowed to pursue the remaining "terrorists" until they are wiped out and praised security forces for their success thus far.
Some 90 people have been killed and hundreds wounded, many of them foreigners, in a string of attacks in the kingdom over the past 15 months.
A one-month royal amnesty, offered on June 23 to suspected Al-Qaeda extremists to turn themselves in, appealed to only six militants, just one of whom figured on a most-wanted list.
Twelve militants on the 26-strong list remain at large, while the others have either been killed in clashes with security forces or surrendered since the list was issued in December.
Saudi authorities, who have rounded up hundreds of suspects, have warned that suspected Islamist militants who do not give themselves up will be crushed.