Saudi security forces killed two militants in a fierce clash in Riyadh and detained the wife and children of the suspected al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, officials said on Wednesday.
An Interior Ministry statement said three other militants were hurt in the clash in the capital on Tuesday night, which security sources said broke out after the gunmen accidentally detonated explosives in a house in the north of the capital.
The ministry did not say whether Saleh al-Awfi, believed to be the al Qaeda chief in the kingdom, was involved in the fighting. A security source denied speculation he had been killed and said there was no indication he was wounded either.
The clash was the latest confrontation between government forces and al Qaeda backers bent on toppling the pro-US leaders of the world's biggest oil exporter.
The Interior Ministry said the shooting broke out in north Riyadh's busy King Fahd district, where security forces were investigating a site used by supporters of "the deviant and corrupt ideology" - a reference to al Qaeda sympathisers.
They came under intense fire from gunmen armed with bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, said the ministry statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Security forces returned fire at the gunmen "killing two of them and wounding three, who were arrested, as well as detaining the family of the wanted man Saleh al-Awfi, made up of his wife and three children", the statement said.
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