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Saudi authorities on Friday hailed a major blow against al Qaeda militants who spurned their conditional amnesty offer, announcing the capture of one of the kingdom's most wanted suspects.
The arrest of Fares al-Zahrani late Thursday came six weeks after security forces killed local al Qaeda commander, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, following attacks on Western expatriates in the kingdom claimed by al Qaeda affiliates.
"Security forces... were able on Thursday evening to capture one of the heads of strife and an advocate of takfeer and bombings ... Fares bin Ahmed bin Shwail al-Zahrani," said an overnight interior ministry statement.
"Takfeer" means branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimise violence against them.
A ministry official said another person was arrested along with Zahrani, but his identity would not be disclosed "for the sake of the (national) interest."
Security forces were able to "prevent the two men from using the weapons they were carrying and capture them alive without anyone being hurt," the official said.
He said Zahrani had "questioned the nation's ulema (clergy)" and incited militants to "kill security forces."
The official did not say where Zahrani, a top figure on a 26-strong list of most-wanted militants, was arrested.
But the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite news channel said Zahrani surrendered to security forces "without putting up any resistance" in a park in the south-western region of Abha after a chase lasting several hours.
Like the majority of fellow suspects on the government's most-wanted list, Zahrani, believed to be in his early 30s, spurned a one-month amnesty offered to Islamic militants by King Fahd on June 23.
Zahrani's capture brings down to 11 the number of militants on the most-wanted list still at large.
The others have been killed in clashes with security forces or turned themselves in to authorities since the list was issued last December.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004

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