During a big security campaign, Asir authorities arrested 159 people on the wanted list for criminal activities over the last two weeks throughout the Asir region in the southern part of the Kingdom. Weapons and ammunitions were found as well during the sweep. "The weapons included 11 guns and 219 live ammunitions," said Asir Police spokesman Col. Abdullah Al-Qarni. The security sweep came upon 29 cases of illegal drinking and drugs and recovered 110 stolen cars, and cited 1,067 people for traffic violations. Six gunmen were arrested and charged with resisting arrest. Around 1,564 illegal and unidentified foreigners were arrested in the sweep. Asir region has been a scene of a large-scale illegal infiltration and alcohol distilleries, prompting routine security sweep to hunt down armed and illegal groups. In Riyadh, authorities nabbed 130 bootleggers and alcohol consumers over the last few weeks. A quantity of heroin and hashish was seized. A Riyadh security sweep on Saturday nabbed four people in possession of hashish and alcohol. Others were rounded up in in different districts of the capital for not carrying proper identification papers. More than pirated 10,000 CDs were destroyed at a local market frequented mainly by expatriates. Adulterated sweets were also seized during the operations. - Okaz (Mansour Al-Shehri from Riyadh contributed to this report) __
