The two men killed in the gunfight in Jizan last Tuesday were known Al-Qaeda militants who carried a store of explosives and four suicide vests for use in an “imminent” attack, the government said Sunday. The authorities have arrested six Yemenis in the wake of the shootout and are searching for more people believed to be involved in the planned attack, according to the interior ministry. The two killed men, identified as Yousef Al-Shehri and Raed Al-Harbi, were both Saudis included on the list of 85 wanted alleged Al-Qaeda associates Riyadh handed over to Interpol earlier this year. With the killing of the two terror suspects and surrender of Muhammad Al-Aufi, Fahd Al-Ruwaili, Fawaz Al-Otaibi and the handover of Muhammad Al-Harbi from the Yemeni authorities and the suicide of Abdullah Asiri on August 28, the list has declined to 78. The ministry said the two men killed in the Jizan shootout, along with a third, their driver who was captured after the gunfight, had snuck into the country from Yemen and were carrying RDX explosives, Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades, pistols, four suicide vests, and a cash amount of SR19,500 and foreign currencies in their car when they were intercepted. The men were believed to have been trained and armed by what is known as the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) led by Nasser Al-Wihaishi, known as Abu Bassir, and the second man Saeed Al-Shehri, known as Abu Sufiyan Al-Azadi. Two of Yousef Al-Shehri's brothers, Faisal and Mustafa, and his cousin Abdulghani Al-Shehri are being detained at the Hai'er Prison, south of Riyadh, for terrorist ties to Al-Qaeda, security sources said. “They had infiltrated into Saudi territory from the border to undertake an imminent criminal act,” the government said. The two dead men had disguised themselves as women wearing conservative head-to-toe black abayas and suicide vests fully ready for use, according to the interior ministry. Ministry spokesman General Mansur Al-Turki said there were still no details available on the planned target or targets of the men. “The investigation is still ongoing. There are more we are still looking for,” he said. Besides the two suicide vests the two were wearing, there were two more in the car, one ready for use and another to be assembled. One of the vests was packed with ball bearings as shrapnel. “When this exploded, it could have hurt so many people,” Al-Turki said. The gunfight broke out after police stopped the car at a highway checkpoint on the road north from Jizan to Abha. One police officer was killed and another wounded in the battle. The incident highlighted Saudi worries that the AQAP was plotting more attacks against Saudi targets, four years after the government successfully put down a Qaeda campaign of bombings and assassinations with a severe crackdown and thousands of arrests. On August 28, Prince Mohammed bin Naif, the powerful assistant deputy interior minister responsible for the kingdom's anti-terror fight, escaped a suicide bomb attack in his Jeddah residence.
