RIYADH, Feb 3: Saudi Arabia has published a list of 85 suspected militants wanted around the world who it said had been drawn to “deviant” ideologies — a reference to the Al Qaeda terror network.

The list, published by the official news agency SPA late on Monday, includes 83 Saudis and two Yemenis and calls for the suspects to turn themselves in to the authorities.

It was released by the interior ministry following news in January that at least nine men the Saudi government had put through a militant rehabilitation process, including several ex-inmates of the US prison at Guantanamo, had been rearrested.

In late January, the US-based SITE monitoring service reported that two men released from Guantanamo appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website. A Saudi named Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shihri was said to have been elevated to the senior ranks of Al Qaeda in Yemen.

In Monday’s statement, the government said that 15 suspected militants previously sought by the government had turned themselves in. Saudi Arabia has been battling with mainly home-grown armed militants linked to Al Qaeda who have waged a string of attacks against western targets and oil facilities since May 2003.

Hundreds of suspected Islamist sympathisers have been arrested. The authorities said in October that the attacks in the Muslim kingdom had killed a total of 90 civilians — both foreigners and Saudis, and 74 members of the security forces.

Saudi Arabia said then that it plans to put in the dock almost 1,000 defendants in the first trials of Al Qaeda suspects.—AFP