Morrocan on Saudi wanted list is al

Morrocan on Saudi wanted list is al-Qaeda leader in kingdom - report
Deutsche Presse-Agentur- June 29, 2005, Wednesday

Cairo (dpa) - A Morrocan man whose name appeared on a new list of terrorist suspects is believed to be the leader of the al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia, a report in the Saudi al-Sharq al-Awsat said Wednesday.

Quoting a Saudi security source, the paper said Morrocan national Younes Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, 36, is believed to have "extensive contact with al-Qaeda and handles the financial and organizational matters in the kingdom."

Al-Hayari's name was the first on a list of 36 wanted suspects issued Tuesday by the Saudi Interior Ministry, which included names of 21 suspects believed to be out of the country and 15 at large within the kingdom.

According to the Saudi daily, al-Hayari is believed to have entered the kingdom using a Bosnian passport in February 2001.

"Putting him as the first person on the list is an indication that he is the most dangerous suspect. He has wide military experience, he trained and fought in Bosnia and Herzegovina and can be considered the leader of the terrorist group in Saudi Arabia," al-Sharq al-Awsat said.

The second on the list, Saudi national Fahed Farraj Mohammed al-Joweir, 35, is believed to have been involved in clashes between Saudi forces and gunmen in January in al-Zolfi, northwest of Riyadh.

The clashes resulted in four gunmen killed and three Saudi security men injured.

"Al-Joweir was among those who frequented the location of the clashes before the confrontation took place," the paper said.

Both al-Hayari and al-Joweir are believed to be in Saudi Arabia.

The paper revealed that number 17 on the list of those outside the country, 27-year-old Saudi national Abdallah Mohammed Saleh al-Romyan, is believed to be being held by Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq.

"We want him and believe he is a very important suspect," the paper quoted the security source as saying.

Al-Romyan's brother is believed to have conducted a suicide operation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in January 2004 which killed 11 Iraqi policemen and injured 50 others.

The security source said that the list of 21 outside Saudi Arabia "are not necessarily in Iraq."

"It is not true that those who leave Saudi Arabia automatically go to Iraq. We received suspects from Sudan, Yemen and Syria. We don't want to fall into the myth that the only safe haven (for suspects) is Iraq," the security source said.

Number 4 on the list, Kuwaiti suspect Mohsen Ayed Fadel al-Fadli, 25, is also wanted by Kuwaiti authorities and is suspected of involvement in attacks in Kuwait and Iraq, in addition to the October 2000 attack on the American destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

The list of 15 suspects the ministry said are still in the kingdom includes 14 Saudi nationals and one Moroccan. Among the 21 suspects outside the kingdom are three from Chad, one from Mauritania, one from Yemen and one from Kuwait. The 14 others, the ministry said, are Saudis.

SOURCE: Deutsche Presse-Agentur; Politics; June 29, 2005, Wednesday; 09:37:32 Central European Time