DUBAI, Aug 17 (AFP) - A statement attributed to Al-Qaeda's branch in Saudi Arabia acknowledged Tuesday the death of one of its members in the holy city of Mecca last week in a battle with security forces.
"Fighter Abdul Rahman bin Obaidullah al-Khalaf al-Harbi died a hero in a clash with apostate government forces in the peninsula of Arabs," said a statement from "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula" and published in the 16th edition of its online military magazine "Muaskar Al-Battar".
The group spoke of Harbi's contribution in numerous clashes involving Al-Qaeda members against Saudi security forces, notably in Riyadh, before congratulating his family for the death "as a martyr of this heroic fighter".
The interior ministry said last week that Harbi, shot dead by Saudi security forces in Mecca on August 11 after hurling a grenade at them, was wanted for "participating directly in the criminal activities of the deviant group", a term used to describe Al-Qaeda sympathizers in the kingdom.
Harbi's activities included preparing bombs and rigging cars with explosives, and he was one of two gunmen who fired on guards at a residential compound in Riyadh before it was bombed last November. Seventeen people were killed in that suicide attack.
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.
Saudi authorities, who have rounded up hundreds of suspects, have warned that suspected Islamist militants who do not give themselves up will be crushed.