Terrorist Chief Said Killed After Hostage Beheaded

Kidnap Victim's Body Is Found Near Capital

BERLIN, June 19--Bloodied bodies shown by Saudi news services Saturday were four leaders of the group that asserted responsibility for the beheading of an abducted American contractor in the capital of Riyadh, according to government officials there and in Washington.

Authorities in Saudi Arabia were continuing to search Riyadh's outskirts for the body of the kidnapped American, Paul M. Johnson Jr., an employee of Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., a senior Saudi official told reporters in Washington.

That statement by Adel Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, contradicted earlier reports that said Saudi officials had already recovered Johnson's decapitated corpse, pictures of which were posted on the Internet Friday by a group calling itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Saudi security forces said the al Qaeda group's leader, Abdulaziz Muqrin, and three others whom authorities had blamed for recent attacks on Westerners were among those killed in a gun battle Friday.

Images broadcast Saturday on state-run television and an all-news Saudi Arabian satellite channel showed what officials said was Muqrin's body. Saudi officials identified the other members of the al Qaeda group who were killed as Faisal bin Abdulrahman Dakheel, Turki bin Fehaid Mutairi and Ibrahim bin Abdullah Duraihem.

In Washington, Jubier said the deaths and the arrest of 12 other members of the group were "a blow to al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia" that had "substantially weakened their organization."

"We will continue to pursue them with vigor until we eliminate them from our midst," Jubeir said. "We are resolved to fight terrorism, those who fund it and those who justify it. We will show no mercy."

Jubier said one Saudi security officer was killed and two were injured in Friday's shootout. Security forces also said they seized guns, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, 16 pipe bombs and three cars, including one that may have been used in a June 6 attack on a BBC television crew that killed an Irish cameraman.

A message on an Islamist Web site Saturday said the government's claims that it had killed Muqrin were "aimed at dissuading the holy warriors and crushing their spirits," the Associated Press reported.

Johnson's kidnapping and the manner of his killing marked a new kind of assault on the American presence in the oil-producing kingdom. Radicals say that vengeance for the occupation of Iraq is part of the reason for the campaign, which has led many Americans to leave the country and made those who remain fearful of streets they once found safe. The ultimate goals, the groups say, are to drive foreigners out of the kingdom and overthrow the House of Saud royal family.

On Friday, President Bush denounced Johnson's killers as "barbaric people" trying to intimidate Americans. "The murder of Paul shows the evil nature of the enemy we face," Bush said in Fort Lewis, Wash. "They're trying to shake our will. They're trying to get us to retreat from the world. . . . America will not be intimidated by these kinds of extremist thugs."

Johnson was reported missing by his family on June 12, the same day that another American contractor who worked out of Johnson's office, Kenneth Scroggs, was killed by gunmen as he drove into his garage in Riyadh.

Last weekend, the group announced it was holding Johnson and said he would be treated as Muslim detainees were treated in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, scene of abuse by U.S. jailers, and Guantanamo Bay.

On Tuesday, Muqrin's group released a short video showing a blindfolded Johnson. A masked man, identified in a caption as Muqrin, threatened to execute him within 72 hours unless Saudi officials released an unspecified number of fellow jihadists from prison. The Saudi government refused and launched an effort to find and rescue Johnson.