Suspected militants killed by Saudi security forces

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi security forces Wednesday killed two suspected militants linked to a weekend shooting and hostage-taking in the kingdom's oil production heartland where 22 people were slain, the Interior Ministry said.\nAlso Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said gunmen fired on American military personnel in the capital of Riyadh, slightly injuring a driver. A statement by the Riyadh chief of police said the injured man was Saudi, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.\nThe weekend attack sent oil prices to record highs before retreating slightly Wednesday. Nevertheless, a key OPEC official said output should be raised.\nOrganization of Petroleum Exporting Countries President Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the cartel needs to assess each of its 11 members' ability to produce more because of the skyrocketing price.\nHe spoke to reporters upon arrival in Beirut for talks ahead of a formal OPEC meeting on production policy Thursday.\nThe ministry, in a statement reported by the Saudi Press Agency, said security forces surrounded the two men in a remote area in al-Hada, on the Taif-Mecca highway in western Saudi Arabia, and killed them after they threw grenades and shot at the troops.\n"Surveillance of those who carried out the criminal attack in Khobar resulted in tracking down the movements of key elements connected to this incident," the statement said.\nIt wasn't immediately clear how they were connected to the Khobar attack, at the end of which three gunmen fled. Saudi security forces have been following tips to their whereabouts, but information had been largely centered on the eastern region where the Khobar attack occurred. Taif is 700 miles southwest of Khobar, near the holy city of Mecca.\nThe statement did not identify the two men. Earlier, though, a Saudi security official who had relayed a different account of the same incident in Taif identified one of the men as Abdul Rahman Mohammed Yazji, No. 25 on a list of Saudi Arabia's 26 most-wanted militants. The official had no details on the second man.\nSaudi television showed video of what it said was the Taif operation, with helicopters taking part and two bodies covered in bloodstained white sheets, being carried away on stretchers by security forces.\nThe Interior Ministry statement said one of the men was disguised as a woman. It said there were no injuries among security forces.\nOn Sunday, Saudi commandos and security forces ended a 25-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege at a resort and housing complex in Khobar in which 22 people were killed. One gunman was wounded and arrested; three others escaped.\nOsama bin Laden has vowed to destabilize the Saudi government, which the Saudi born extremist views as insufficiently Islamic and which he derides for its close relationship with the United States. Saudi officials have linked militant violence in the kingdom to al Qaeda or to other groups believed inspired by bin Laden.\nIn Riyadh, shots were fired Wednesday morning on two vehicles carrying U.S. military personnel near a Saudi National Guard compound where a U.S. training unit is based, according to a U.S. Embassy statement. The convoy returned immediately to the compound, and a driver, whose nationality was not given, was slightly injured, the statement said. It was not clear whether the driver was shot.\n"Saudi Arabian authorities are investigating," the statement added.\nSaudi security officials had said earlier that no one was injured in the shooting in the southern part of the capital. The conflicting reports on the injury could not be immediately reconciled.\nThe Khobar attack had sparked increases in already high global oil prices, amid fears that the Saudi government, which controls the world's largest proven crude reserves, cannot protect its vital oil installations.\nIn Lebanon, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said his country was taking adequate steps to safeguard its most important facilities.\nNaimi was in Beirut for a formal Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting Thursday on production policy. Saudi Arabia is already boosting its own production to try to get prices down, Naimi said earlier that he would urge OPEC to raise its output ceiling by as much as 2.5 million barrels a day, or 11 percent.