Saudi authorities announced Sunday a list of 47 people wanted for suspected links to al Qaeda who are all abroad, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA. "Authorities have identified 47 wanted Saudis who are abroad and who adopt the deviant ideology," the ministry said, using the kingdom's term for the al Qaeda terror network.
The interior ministry said that it has passed the list to the international police, Interpol, and advised the suspects to hand themselves in at Saudi embassies "to repatriate them and reunite them with their families."
This was the fifth in a series of lists of people with suspected al Qaeda links to be released so far by the Saudi interior ministry.
Saudi militants linked to al Qaeda launched a wave of attacks against Westerners and government installations between 2003 and 2006 before coming under a severe crackdown by the authorities.
Many are believed to be active in neighbouring Yemen after the merger of the Saudi and Yemeni al Qaeda front groups in the two countries under the banner of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which is based in Yemen.
The Saudi justice ministry announced on Saturday that by the end of November 765 people suspected of links to al Qaeda have been tried and sentenced, although it did not mention any verdicts.
Last month police at a checkpoint in Wadi al-Dawasir, 600 kilometres (360 miles) south-east of Riyadh, killed an al Qaeda militant disguised as a woman after he emerged from a car and fired at security personnel. US diplomatic cables leaked last month by WikiLeaks claimed that Saudi Arabia was a key source of funding for radical Sunni Islamist groups, including al Qaeda.
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