By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : A senior Al Qaeda member Khaled al-Atifi al-Qahtani has given himself up to the authorities in his homeland Saudi Arabia, the country’s SPA news agency said Thursday.
Al-Qahtani is the first Al Qaeda member to surrender since the group’s leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a US operation Monday in Pakistan’s Abbottabad city.
“Khaled al-Atifi al-Qahtani, one of 47 Saudis abroad wanted by the security authorities, contacted the security bodies expressing his willingness to be helped to come back home and to turn himself in,” Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki said.
“A matter was arranged and facilitated to realise his return and to be reunited with his family as soon as he arrived in the Kingdom,” the spokesman said.
Saudi Arabia offers cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of Al Qaeda members on its wanted list, compiled earlier this year. The document is the latest of five terrorist wanted lists drawn up since a series of attacks on the kingdom in 2003.
In November 2010, the Saudi authorities announced that they had arrested 149 suspected Al Qaeda members and uncovered 19 terrorist cells in the preceding eight months.