Saudi Al Qaeda Chief Reported Dead

The leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia was believed killed by police in the capital Friday, hours after his group said it had beheaded an American engineer, Saudi security officials said.

A U.S. official confirmed that Abdulaziz al-Moqrin had been killed. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

The slain American, New Jersey engineer Paul M. Johnson, Jr., was shown in grisly photographs posted on the Web.

In one picture, a bloodied knife rests up against his forehead. In another, three anonymous men are seen gathered around his body, one holding his head in the air, reports

A statement signed by 'the al Qaeda organization in the Arabic Peninsula' said Johnson was murdered after Saudi authorities, with U.S. approval, refused to negotiate.

A senior Saudi official in Washington also said al-Moqrin and two others were killed in a shootout Friday evening.

To establish identities, one Saudi official said forensic tests would be conducted on three bodies of militants killed in a shootout in the downtown al-Malz neighborhood shortly after the discovery of Paul M. Johnson Jr.'s body. A Saudi security official said a witness took note of the license number of a car from which Johnson's body had been dumped and told police. Police stopped the car at a gas station and the shootout ensued.

Two Saudi officials in Washington said on condition of anonymity that four militants and five Saudi security officers were killed in the gunbattle, and that fighting was continuing.

In Riyadh, the security officials said one security officer was killed and two wounded. The various reports could not be immediately reconciled.

A second operation took place in the nearby al-Quds neighborhood. The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite station later reported that operation had ended, but provided no details.

The killing of al-Moqrin, 31, would be a coup for the Saudi government, which has been under intense pressure to halt a wave of attacks against Westerners in the kingdom.

Al-Arabiya, which first reported al-Moqrin's death, said two other militants were also killed in the raid, and another was wounded and arrested. All three dead militants were on Saudi Arabia's list of 26 most wanted men, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A security official in Riyadh said Rakan Mohsen Mohammed Al Saykhan, who is second on the list of most wanted, was injured and arrested.

Al-Arabiya identified the two others killed as the Dakheel brothers. According to the list of 26, the brothers are Faisal Abdulrahman Abdullah Al Dakheel and Bandar Abdulrahman Abdullah Al Dakheel.

Two suspects escaped, said one Saudi security official who took part in the raid.

Al-Moqrin, who trained with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, is believed to be the leader of the group calling itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for Johnson's beheading.

Al-Moqrin, a Saudi, took command of al Qaeda's Saudi cell when his predecessor, Yemeni Khaled Ali Haj, was killed in a May 2003 shootout. Haj was third on the list of 26.

The number of suspects remaining on the list was not clear, as Saudi Arabia does not always name those killed or arrested.

Al-Moqrin's group has also claimed responsibility for most attacks against Westerners in Saudi Arabia in the past two months.