RIYADH - Saudi authorities hailed the killing of a wanted Al-Qaeda militant Wednesday hot on the heels of the deaths of 14 gunmen in a three-day firefight who the opposition said included top commanders of the Islamist network.
Security forces killed Abdul Rahman al-Yazji, a suspect on the kingdom's most-wanted list, after tracking him down to a southern industrial neighbourhood of the capital, the interior ministry said.
Yazji, a Saudi national, opened fire after being surrounded by security personnel and was slain in the ensuing shootout, state television quoted the ministry as saying.
A wounded comrade was captured.
The raid in the capital came just a day after security forces wrapped up a three-day assault on militants holed up in the Al-Qassim region, an Islamist stronghold 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Riyadh.
The interior ministry said that at least 14 militants had been killed, including a number on the most-wanted list, although a security force put the death toll at up to 18.
Five wounded militants were captured while a sixth surrendered. Fourteen security personnel were wounded.
The ministry declined to release any names but Saudi-owned media said the dead included Al-Qaeda's commander for the Arabian peninsula, Saleh al-Oufi, and hunted operatives Saud al-Otaibi of Saudi Arabia and Abdel Karim al-Mejati of Morocco.
A London-based opposition group, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, also said that Oufi, a former police officer who was number four on the most-wanted list, had been found dead after the clashes in the Al-Qassim town of Al-Rass.
"One of the dead, who had an amputated leg, was found in a wheelchair," the opposition said in an Internet statement.
"According to information available to the security services, it is Saleh al-Oufi. But the body was burnt and it is not possible to be certain of his identity before a DNA analysis."
If the deaths of Oufi, Otaibi and Mejati are confirmed, only two of Saudi Arabia's 26 most-wanted Islamist militants remain on the run. The others have all been killed or captured.
Ironically Oufi had been reported killed in a security force raid last year but resurfaced in voice recordings attributed to him by an Islamist website calling for attacks on "crusader" targets in the region.
He took over from his slain predecessor only last June.
This week's clashes were the bloodiest in the security forces' nearly two-year-old campaign against Islamic militants.
Including the latest deaths, the violence which erupted in May 2003 has cost the lives of 90 civilians, 39 security personnel and 107 militants, according to official figures.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is Saudi-born and 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States were Saudis.
The unrest in the world's top oil exporter has raised fears about the security of the West's supplies but Saudi authorities insist that the oilfields, concentrated in the east of the kingdom, are well protected.
King Fahd on Monday said the government was determined to "eradicate terrorism and fight the deviant group."
04/06/2005 14:39 GMT