RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi forces killed five terror suspects, including two of the country's most wanted men, during overnight raids launched in response to suicide bombing in the capital, a security official said Friday.
Police blocked the al-Safaa neighborhood in the port city of Jiddah late Thursday after receiving a tip that wanted militants were in the area, the Interior Ministry said in a written statement. The fugitives then began shooting, it said.
Three militants were killed in the shooting Thursday, and one was arrested, the ministry said. A security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that two more wanted men were killed Friday and police were pursuing their companions, who fled by car.
One policeman was slightly injured in the shooting, the ministry statement said.
The raid followed a suicide bombing in Riyadh on Wednesday at the headquarters of Saudi General Security, a national police agency. The attack killed six people, including the attacker, and wounded 148.
The two dead fugitives were wanted in connection with bombings in Riyadh that killed 51 people in May and November 2003. It was unclear if they were connected to Wednesday's attack.
On Friday, soldiers continued to guard the site of the blast in Riyadh, about 600 miles northeast of Jiddah. Traffic was diverted around the area, and pedestrians were urged to hurry past by guards.
Following the blast, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, pledged "there will be no compromise" in the fight against terrorism.
Two of the men killed in the raid, Ahmed Abdul-Rahman Saqr al-Fadhli and Mostafa Ibrahim Mohammed Mubaraki, were ranked as numbers eight and 17 on a government list of most wanted militants, according to a security official speaking on condition of anonymity.
The list of 26 ranks terror suspects wanted for the Riyadh attacks in 2003. Both attacks were blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.
The Al-Haramin Brigades, a group purportedly inspired by al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide attack in a statement posted Thursday on at least two Islamic Web sites. The authenticity of the statement could not be verified.
On Friday, the preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca condemned the attack.
"Any act, behavior or a call to destabilize the security of the society is considered a grave crime, grand atrocity, injustice, aggression and an outrage," Abdel Rahman bin Abdel Aziz al-Sudeis said in his Friday sermon, aired live by state-run Saudi television.
A few days before the attack, the United States had ordered nonessential U.S. government employees and family members to leave Saudi Arabia because of "credible indications" of terrorist plots against American and Western interests.
Saudi police said last weekend that they had seized three booby-trapped SUVs loaded with more than four tons of explosives. The vehicles had apparently been abandoned by militants involved in an earlier shootout with security forces.