Saudi calls on 83 wanted militants to surrender

SAUDI CALL: Kingdom officials have urged militants to hand themselves in after 'adopting the straying ideology', a reference to Bin Laden's al Qaeda. (AFP)

Saudi Arabia has issued a list of 83 wanted militants based overseas and called on them to turn themselves in to authorities and "return to a normal life".

Saudi television read the names and showed photographs of the wanted men, all Saudis except for two Yemenis, who it said had "adopted the straying ideology", a reference to al Qaeda.

The announcement followed a move last month by al Qaeda's wing in neighbouring Yemen to name two Saudis released from the US military prison camp in Guantanamo as commanders.

The television quoted an Interior ministry official as saying 15 other militants had surrendered and returned to their families and "been helped to return to a normal life". The official urged the 83 to turn themselves in to Saudi missions abroad, saying Interpol had been asked to arrest them.

Al Qaeda's wing in Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral home, last month issued a video on the Internet, in which it changed its name to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in an apparent attempt to revive the Islamic militant group in Saudi Arabia.

One of the two wanted Yemenis is Abu Basir Nasser al-Wahayshi, leader of the group, who appeared on the video and threatened attacks against Westerners in the region.

Al Qaeda's Saudi wing launched a campaign to destabilise the world's largest oil exporter in 2003, but the violence was brought to a halt after a long campaign of arrests.

Saudi Arabia also put hundreds of militants through a rehabilitation programme which included education by clerics to "correct" their thinking and financial help to start a new life.

But the kingdom admitted last month that some of those released had rejoined militant groups, and that nine, including Guantanamo returnees, were re-arrested.

Since 2003, Saudi Arabia has issued other lists of dozens of wanted militants, most of whom have been killed in shootouts with security forces or arrested.

In October, Saudi Arabia said it had indicted 991 suspected al Qaeda militants for carrying out 30 attacks since 2003.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz said charges had been laid against the suspects, who had been handed over to the courts for trials. (Reuters)

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