Beheaded hostage an infidel, saysal-Qaida boss

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.

In an article posted yesterday on a website used by Islamic radicals, Abdulaziz al-Moqrin called Paul M. Johnson Jnr "an infidel, a warrior of the military".

Mr Johnson, who had worked on Apache helicopters for Lockheed Martin in Saudi Arabia, "works for military aviation and he belongs to the American army, which kills, tortures and harms Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies (of Islam) in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir," al-Moqrin wrote.

The article, posted on the website "Sout al-Jihad," or "Voice of Holy War," was written after the kidnapping but apparently before Johnson was killed on Friday. Al-Moqrin replied to critics urging the release of Mr Johnson, saying: "Do those people want to see this infidel carry on the killing of the children and the raping of the women in Baghdad and Kabul?"

Al-Moqrin, believed to be the top al-Qaida figure in Saudi Arabia, was killed along with three other militants in a Riyadh gun battle Friday night, hours after photos of Mr Johnson's body and severed head were posted on website.

Meanwhile, police in armoured vehicles and a helicopter sealed off three neighbourhoods of the Saudi capital yesterday in a search for Mr Johnson's body and Islamic militants involved in his death.

Al-Moqrin, reputedly al-Qaida's point man in Saudi Arabia, was killed in a shootout on Saturday with security forces a few hours after the terror group posted photographs of Mr Johnson's beheading on the internet.

Three other militants also died in the gun battle, which began when security forces tracked down al-Moqrin and his associates in a car in al-Malaz.

One security officer was killed and two were wounded in the gun battle. The Interior Ministry said 12 suspected militants also were arrested in a sweep of the capital. One of the 12 was suspected of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, which killed 17 US sailors.

Saudi TV broadcast pictures of four bloodied bodies it said were the militants, apparently to refute initial denials by Islamic militants that al-Moqrin was dead. Late Saturday, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Moqrin's group, issued an online statement confirming its leader and the three others had been killed.

The Interior Ministry said authorities had confiscated forged identity papers, $38,000 in Saudi and American currency, three rocket-propelled grenade launchers, hand grenades, automatic rifles and other weapons. Also confiscated were three cars used by al-Moqrin's cell, including one believed to have been used in the June 6 killing of Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers, who was filming for the BBC when he was shot. A BBC correspondent was seriously wounded.

Mr Johnson was seized June 12, the same day that Islamic militants shot and killed Kenneth Scroggs of Laconia, New Hampshire, in his garage in Riyadh. Earlier that week, militants in Riyadh also shot dead American Robert Jacobs of Murphysboro, Illinois.

US Ambassador James C Oberwetter praised Saudi security forces for their work, including the killing of al-Moqrin "among the most vicious of the current al-Qaida thugs on the peninsula" but said Saudi Arabia remains a dangerous place for Westerners.

Dia'a Rashwan, a Cairo expert on Islamic militants, said Saudi Arabia's conservative Islamic traditions make it fertile ground for extremism. "There are always new generations who can take over and continue their course," he said.