A group of Muslim militants were killed during a shoot-out with Saudi Arabian security forces yesterday, interior ministry sources said.
They said five militants surrendered while one was still on the run. The shoot-out took place in a farm near the town of Bureida in the Qassim province - an Islamist heartland in the northeast of Saudi Arabia, the sources added.
They could not give the number of those killed or injured.
The clash follows a crackdown by Saudi Arabia - birthplace of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden - after three bombings in Riyadh in May killed 35 people, including nine Americans.
The United States and Saudi Arabia blamed al-Qaeda for the attacks.
Riyadh said last week it had arrested 16 militants planning more attacks and seized a huge cache of arms and explosives.
It said then that Saudi Arabian security forces were chasing other militants linked to the cell, but did not identify the 16 suspects or say what their targets were.
It was the biggest of a series of weapons finds shown on television in recent months in the Islamic state, which some US commentators have accused of being soft on terror.
Western sources in Saudi Arabia say the authorities are co-operating closely with US investigators in tackling Saudi-based members and financiers of al-Qaeda.