Hidhli, the wanted terrorist whose capture was announced by the Ministry of Interior on Wednesday, was reportedly working for Traffic Police when he abandoned his job and home without warning six years ago. Al-Hidhli had been missing for six years, according to Okaz, before reappearing in Yanbu last week where he was detained by security forces shortly before Friday prayer on the Corniche. Al-Hidhli, 36, is married with four children, and grew up in the Al-Ghasala district in the east of Makkah, where he attended primary school before moving on to intermediate level at Jabal Nour School. He is one of five brothers, one of whom died several years ago in a motor accident, while his father died during Al-Hidhli's six-year absence. Sheikh Faris Al-Hidhli, chief of the Aal Radda tribe to which Al-Hidhli belongs, said he was surprised by the terrorist's inclusion in the ministry's list of wanted men when it was published in February of 2009. “He had shown no signs of any deviant thought,” Sheikh Al-Hidhli said. The sheikh said that there was relief at the news of Al-Hidhli's arrest “before he was able to carry out any criminal or hostile act against the religion and country”, and described him as “being in safe hands”. “We ask Allah that he be returned to the correct path,” Sheikh Al-Hidhli said. Sheikh Al-Hidhli gave further details to Al-Watan newspaper on Thursday, saying that Ahmed Al-Hidhli had been employed with “emergency services” before transferring to Traffic Police in Makkah where he worked for less than a year “until he was dismissed due to absence from work”. The sheikh described that absence as coinciding with Al-Hidhli's “becoming introverted and distancing himself from people, even his own family had noticed changes in his behavior”. Influences Those changes, Sheikh Al-Hidhli said, were due to the “influence of some preachers of deviant thought and managed to change his thinking and get him to join them, until he eventually left his wife and four children and disappeared”. Sheikh Al-Hidhli is cited as saying that his disappearance occurred seven years ago. Al-Watan said that Al-Hidhli was presumed to be residing abroad when the Feb. 2009 Ministry of Interior list of most-wanted was released. Divergent sources The Ministry of Interior announced Wednesday that Ahmed Qateem Mohammed Al-Hidhli, number 10 on the ministry's list of 85 wanted, was arrested last Friday at Yanbu Corniche without offering resistance after a tip-off alerted authorities to his presence. Al-Hidhli had reportedly only just arrived in the region. A variety of “sources” informing the daily Arabic press, however, offer several divergent accounts of Al-Hidhli's capture. Al-Hayat Arabic daily reported “security sources” as saying that Al-Hidhli was detained while with his family at a security checkpoint on the Corniche road of Yanbu Industrial City on Thursday eight days ago. Al-Hayat said the sources did not rule out the possibility that he was surveying industrial sites. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat cited “information it had obtained” as saying Al-Hidhli's arrest occurred on Friday at a tourist hotel in Yanbu while he was with a group of persons. It is not known, the newspaper said, if they were friends or relatives. The same newspaper quoted spokesman for the Ministry of Interior Mansour Al-Turki as declining to either confirm or deny reports of Al-Hidhli's involvement in last August's attempted assassination of Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister for Security Affairs, quoting him as saying that “investigations with him (Al-Hidhli) are still going on to uncover the activities in which he has been involved”. A security source was also cited by Reuters news agency Wednesday as saying that Al-Hidhli had been monitoring oil and industrial facilities at Yanbu, with spokesman Al-Turki declining to comment, saying Hidhli was still being questioned. Information on the movements of Al-Hidhli over the last few years is scarce. He is not recorded as having traveled outside the Kingdom and reportedly has no passport. He was erroneously reported by some media sources as having carried out the failed assassination attempt on the Assistant Minister for Security Affairs Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Bin Abdul Aziz on Aug. 30 last year, but it is believed that he was a member of an Al-Qaeda cell in Makkah. Al-Qaeda itself later claimed that Al-Hidhli was killed in Afghanistan at the battle of Khost in the Gardiz region, but Saudi security information that led to his name subsequently appearing on the Ministry of Interior list proved reliable. Al-Hidhli's capture, the first of an individual on the wanted list to be detained in the Kingdom, brings the number of those wanted by the Ministry of Interior down to 74.
