THE head of the al-Qaida cell that beheaded an American engineer justified the killing in a message written before he himself was shot dead by Saudi security forces.

The al-Qaida cell that kidnapped and killed American Paul M. Johnson Jr. claimed today that sympathisers in the kingdom’s security forces supplied it with police uniforms and vehicles and set up fake checkpoints to facilitate last week’s abduction.

Police in armoured vehicles and a helicopter closed off three Riyadh neighbourhoods in a pre-dawn search today for more Islamic extremists and for the body of the American hostage beheaded by al-Qaida.

The terror cell which executed a US hostage in Saudi Arabia was today implicated in the attack in which Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed while working for BBC.

Saudi Arabia killed four suspected terrorists, including the reputed leader of al-Qaida in the kingdom, the Interior Ministry said today.

Al Qaida’s leader in Saudi Arabia was killed in a raid by security forces hours after terrorists under his command beheaded an American hostage.