12 January,2011 12:51 PM IST | | Agencies
Saudi Arabian authorities have handed over a fresh list of 47 wanted terrorists, including Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, to international police agency Interpol.
Osama's son-in-law Muhammad Salim Barikan is number 39 on the list of 47 suspected terrorists that the Saudi Arabian government gave to the Interpol, according to Arab-language newspaper Al-Hayat.
Barikan, 47, who worked as Osama's bodyguard, was married to the Al Qaeda chief's 27-year-old daughter Fatima when she was 13. Following his marriage, Barikan lived for months in a cave in Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
Barikan's name appeared a few months ago on a number of jihadist online forums saying he had been killed by a US drone attack in Pakistan's northwest Waziristan province.
Barikan left Saudi Arabia in 1997 to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan where he became a trusted commander of the terrorist outfit.
Major Gen Mansour al-Turki, a spokesperson for Saudi Arabia's interior ministry, warned that all the 47 men were key figures in supplying arms and financing to terrorist outfits in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"One of their main goals is to establish terrorist cells inside the kingdom, to recruit Saudis and have them trained," he was quoted as saying by British daily The Telegraph. "We had to take this to Interpol to make sure that wherever they are, they can be captured."
Yemen represented the single largest contributor to the list, being the base of 16 of the 47 Saudis named. Another 27 were split between Pakistan and Afghanistan with officials unable to determine exact whereabouts and four were believed to be operating in Iraq.
