Saudi says Qaeda militant dressed as woman killed
The suspect in woman's clothes killed at a police checkpoint last week was an Al-Qaeda militant, the Saudi interior ministry said on Monday.
The man "disguised in women's clothes" killed after opening fire on security forces was "a Saudi wanted for belonging to the deviant group (Al-Qaeda) and his involvement in criminal activities," it said.
The ministry, in a statement carried by state news agency SPA, named the man as Mohammed Issam Taher Baghdadi.
Two men, one wearing a woman's black abaya robe with the face veiled, were stopped last Friday at a checkpoint in Wadi al-Dawasir, 600 kilometres (360 miles) southeast of Riyadh, an interior ministry spokesman said at the time.
The one dressed as a woman emerged from their vehicle and began shooting at the guards, who fired back and killed him, while the other man in the car was arrested. None of the security personnel was wounded.
Monday's statement, however, did not mention the second suspect.
The ministry has said the tactics used to get through the checkpoint pointed to Al-Qaeda.
In October 2009, Saudi security personnel killed two men dressed as women when their car laden with weapons and suicide bomb vests was stopped on a highway.
