Periodically
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
's
Ministry of Interior publishes a
most wanted list.
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According to ''
Asharq Alawsat
''Asharq Al-Awsat'' ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, Aš-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ, meaning "The Middle East") is an Arabic international newspaper headquartered in London. A pioneer of the "off-shore" model in the Arabic press, the paper is often noted f ...
'' Saudi Arabia has published four lists of "most wanted" suspected terrorists, and those lists contained 19, 26, 36 and 85 individuals.
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The list of 85 most wanted suspected terrorists published in February 2009 named eleven former Guantanamo captives.][
]
Earlier lists
On May 7, 2003, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced a list of 19 names who it said were planning to carry out subversive activities. On May 12, 2003 Riyadh compound bombings took place.
List of December 6, 2003
A list published on December 5, 2003 contained twenty-six names.[
When a new list was published in February 2009 ]Carol Rosenberg
Carol Rosenberg is a senior journalist at ''The New York Times.'' Long a military-affairs reporter at the ''Miami Herald'', from January 2002 into 2019 she reported on the operation of the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, at its nav ...
, writing in the ''Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
'', reported that all, but one of the captives had been killed or captured.[
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List of June 28, 2005
The list of June 28, 2005 contained thirty-six names.[
The Saudi government encouraged those named on the list to surrender, and promised lenient treatment.
By April 7, 2007 the Saudi government reported that twenty-three of those individuals had been killed or captured.
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List of February 3, 2009
The most recently published list was published on February 3, 2009.[
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It listed 85 individuals, 83 of whom were Saudis, and two were from Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
.
Carol Rosenberg, reporting in the ''Miami Herald'', wrote that six of the men on the new most wanted list were former Guantanamo captive
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
s.
Robert Worth, reporting in the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', wrote that fourteen Saudis, formerly held in Guantanamo, had fallen under suspicion of supporting terrorism following their release.[
]
The men were all believed to be living outside of Saudi Arabia, some of them receiving militant training.
They were promised lenient treatment, and encouraged to turn themselves in at the nearest Saudi embassy.
Those on the new list include three Saudis who appeared in a threatening al Qaeda video:[
]Said Ali al-Shihri
Sa'id Ali Jabir Al Khathim Al Shihri (1971–2013) was a Saudi Arabian deputy leader of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and possibly involved in the kidnappings and murders of foreigners in Yemen. Said Ali al-Shihr ...
, Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi and Nasir al-Wuhayshi
Nasir Abdel Karim al-Wuhayshi ( ar, ناصر عبد الكريم الوحيشي'; also transliterated as Naser al-Wahishi, Nasser al-Wuhayshi) alias Abu Basir, (1 October 1976 – 12 June 2015) was a Yemeni Islamist, who served as the leader o ...
, and another individual named Abdullah al-Qarawi.
Al-Wuhayshi claims he is the leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Al-Shihri and Al-Awfi are former Guantanamo captives, and Al-Shihri stated he was Al-Wuyashi's deputy.
The '' Saudi Gazette'' reported that Saudi security officials identified an individual named Saleh Al-Qaraawi
Saleh Al-Qaraawi ( ar, صالح القرعاوي) is a Saudi militant Jihadist.
Background
Al-Qaraawi fought in the Iraqi Insurgency alongside Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was a founder of the militant Abdullah Azzam Brigade ...
as the leader of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب, Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, lit=Organization of the Base in the Arabian Peninsula or , ''Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jaz ...
.[
An article published in '']Asharq Alawsat
''Asharq Al-Awsat'' ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, Aš-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ, meaning "The Middle East") is an Arabic international newspaper headquartered in London. A pioneer of the "off-shore" model in the Arabic press, the paper is often noted f ...
'' on February 6, 2009, noted the range in age among the suspects—from seventeen to fifty-two.[
]
This article named Abdullah El Qarawi, who it described as the "most dangerous" individual on the list, as the leader of Al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf.
According to the article Abdullah El Qarawi is just 26 years old, and most of the individuals on the list are between 25 and 25.
The article listed the names and ages of fifteen other individuals.
Another article in the ''Asharq Alawsat'' identified other individual from the list, including: Abdullah al-Abaed—wanted for the assassination of a senior police official, and Mohamed Abul-Khair, one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard American officials have reported that the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had numerous bodyguards. They reported that the detainees held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp included at least 30 of Bin Laden's bodyguards.
How long Osama bin L ...
s, and one of his sons-in-law.
mirror
On February 7, 2009 the '' Saudi Gazette'' reported some details of some of the wanted men.[
The article named seven men it identified as former Guantanamo captives, and five other most wanted suspected terrorists it did not identify as former Guantanamo captives.
]
List of January 2011
December 6, 2003 list[
According to the ''Saudi Gazette'', the list was published by ]Interpol
The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
on January 5, 2011.[
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They reported one of the wanted men was 18, 34 of the men were between 20 and 30, and the remaining 12 were between 30 and 40.
The list of 47 suspects included the following individuals:[
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Suspects who remain at large, or otherwise unaccounted for
Hani Al Mubarak, the flight student from Saudi Arabia, has been located by Kimberly Zechman Webster in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
According to the Agence France Presse, the SPA News Agency reported on May 23, 2009, that three Saudis suspected of ties to Al Qaida returned to Saudi Arabia and turned themselves in to authorities.[
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The ''Arab News
''Arab News'' is an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia. It is published from Riyadh. The target audiences of the paper, which is published in broadsheet format, are businessmen, executives and diplomats.
At least as of ...
'' reported the identities of the three men were not made public, but that they had not been listed on the February 2009 most-wanted list.[
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The '' Saudi Gazette'' reported that only two of the men voluntarily surrendered and that the third man was captured in Yemen.[
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On October 19, 2010, when reporting the surrender of Jabir Jubran Al Fayfi
Jabir Jubran Al Fayfi (also Jabir Jubran Al Fayfi and Jaber Jabran Ali Al-Fayfee and Jaber Al-Fifi; born in 1975 in Ta'if, Saudi Arabia) is a citizen of Saudi Arabia who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantánamo Bay dete ...
and Badr Mohammed Nasser al-Shihri, the Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
asserted that 70 of the original 85 men named on the list remained at large or unaccounted for.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saudi List Of Most Wanted Suspected Terrorists
Fugitives wanted by Saudi Arabia
Most wanted lists
Terrorism-related lists
Most wanted suspected terrorists
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