RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – An al-Qaida cell beheaded American engineer Paul Johnson, and in a swift retaliation, officials said Saudi security forces tracked down and killed the leader of the terrorist group in a shootout on Friday.
Johnson, who was kidnapped last weekend, was the latest victim of an escalating campaign of violence against Westerners that aims to drive foreign workers from the country and undermine the ruling royal family, which is hated by al-Qaida members.
The death hours later of Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, the reputed leader of al-Qaida in the kingdom, was a coup for the Saudi government, which has been under intense pressure to halt the wave of attacks. In a video posted on the Internet Tuesday, a hooded al-Moqrin held an assault rifle and shouted demands for the release of al-Qaida prisoners as Johnson sat blindfolded.
Saudi forces also killed four other al-Qaida militants in Friday’s shootout, which came after a witness reported the license plate number of a car from which the militants had dumped Johnson’s body. Police then stopped the vehicle at a gas station, security officials said.
But they were too late to save Johnson, whose severed head was shown on a Web site Friday. The photographs and a statement, in the name of the Fallujah Brigade of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, appeared after Johnson’s wife went on Arab television and tearfully pleaded for his release.
“In answer to what we promised … to kill the hostage Paul Marshall (Johnson) after the period is over … the infidel got his fair treatment,” the al-Qaida statement said.
“Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles,” the statement said.
Johnson, 49, worked on Apache attack helicopter systems for Lockheed Martin. His captors had threatened to kill him by Friday if the kingdom did not release its al-Qaida prisoners. The Saudi government rejected the demands.
President Bush said the execution “shows the evil nature of the enemy we face.”
“They’re trying to get us to retreat from the world,” Bush said. “America will not retreat. America will not be intimidated by these kinds of extremist thugs. May God bless Paul Johnson.”
Johnson’s family in Galloway Township, N.J., said authorities worked as hard as they could to rescue him, and that his slaying did not dampen their respect for his adopted country.
“Paul considered Saudi Arabia his home. He loved the people and the country,” said an FBI agent speaking on behalf of Johnson’s relatives.
Shortly after finding Johnson’s body 20 miles north of the capital, Saudi police swooped down on the al-Malz neighborhood in central Riyadh and exchanged fire with al-Qaida suspects.
Saudi officials in Washington, D.C., said five Saudi security officers were killed in the gunbattle. Two suspects escaped, said one Saudi security official who took part in the raid.
A U.S. official confirmed that al-Moqrin, 31, was one of the dead. A Saudi official said forensic tests would be conducted on the body to confirm his identity.
Saudi security officials say al-Moqrin trained with Saudi exile Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and later fought in Bosnia and Algeria. Known as a smart and brutal tactician, al-Moqrin became the most-wanted militant in Saudi Arabia.
A senior Saudi official in Washington identified the other militants killed Friday as:
* Turki al-Sahaid, said to have been involved in the May 29 shooting and hostage-taking attack on the oil hub of Khobar that killed 22 people, most of them foreigners.
* Faisal Abdulrahman Abdullah al-Dakheel, on the government’s list of 26 most-wanted militants.
* Rakan al-Sakhain, the second most-wanted man and an alleged associate of the mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen’s port of Aden in October 2000.
* Ibrahim al-Drhaim. (No other information was available.)
One of the three photographs posted Friday on the Web site showed a man’s head, face toward the camera, being held by a hand. The two others showed a beheaded body lying prone on a bed, with the severed head placed in the small of his back, the clothes underneath bloodied. One showed a bloody knife resting on the face.
The beheaded body was dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit similar to one Johnson is seen wearing in earlier videos released by the kidnappers.
“To the Americans and whoever is their ally in the infidel and criminal world and their allies in the war against Islam, this action is punishment to them and a lesson for them to know that whoever steps foot in our country, this decisive action will be his fate,” the al-Qaida statement said.
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