Saudis kill ex-Ontario terrorist
WASHINGTON—A former Ontario resident, one of the most wanted Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia, was killed early yesterday along with three other fugitives during a gun battle with Saudi police.
Abdoul Rahman Mansour Jabarah, a 23-year-old Kuwaiti who was raised in St. Catharines, is believed to have played a key role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh. He was also one of 19 men on the run after a shootout on May 6 with Saudi security forces in Riyadh.
Jabarah and Turki Nasser Mishaal Dandani, a Saudi citizen identified by authorities as a key planner of the May 12 attacks, died in the clash with police who stormed the home of a cleric who had hidden them.
Dandani detonated a hand grenade as police closed in on him in the town of Swair, about 900 kilometres north of Riyadh near the border with Jordan, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
U.S. officials described both men as leaders of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia; Jabarah also had direct links to former Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who until his March 1 arrest in Pakistan was leading the terror group's efforts to re-establish its global network of cells.
Jabarah is also the older brother of Mohamed Mansour Jabarah, who U.S. and Canadian authorities say was recruited by Al Qaeda leaders to blow up American targets in Southeast Asia.
Both brothers lived in St. Catharines in the early 1990s; the younger Jabarah was a student at a Catholic school before going abroad, allegedly to join Al Qaeda. Mohamed, 21, was arrested in Oman last year and is being held in New York.
Sources told the Star's Michelle Shephard in May Mohamed was co-operating with authorities.
Both brothers were trained in guerrilla tactics at the Sheik Shaheed Abu Yahya training camp in Afghanistan, according to Western intelligence sources.
The confrontation occurred just after 5 a.m., when Saudi security forces surrounded the house where Dandani, Jabarah and several other wanted men.
One suspect, identified as Hassan Hadi Dossari, a Saudi national, gave himself up.
But Dandani and the others opened fire and lobbed grenades at the officers, according to the Saudi Interior Ministry.
In the ensuing gun battle, Dandani, Jabarah, Saudi national Amash Subaibie and Rajih Hassan Ajmi, a Kuwaiti, were killed, according to Nail Al Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
Saudi authorities later arrested three men they described as accomplices attempting to smuggle Dandani and Jabarah out of the country. Al Jubeir identified them as two Saudis, Mohammed Sulaiman Sagaabi and Nasser Ruwaili, and a Syrian, Mohammed Badr Hazbar.
The U.S. official said Dandani played a "senior management'' role in the co-ordinated attacks, which killed 34, including nine terrorists, on May 12.
U.S. and Saudi authorities said yesterday they did not know whether Dandani, 29, personally participated in the May 12 attacks, but said that he helped plan and finance them.
Saudi officials also described Dandani as "the No. 1 figure on the wanted list" of 19 suspected Al Qaeda sought following the discovery of a large arms cache in Riyadh on May 6.