Abdullah Mohammed al-Ramian and Mohammed Saleh al-Rushoodi were arrested in September 2003 as they crossed into Iraq's Kurdish region from Turkey after transiting through Jordan and Syria, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper said.

The daily published pictures of the two men, saying it interviewed them at their place of detention in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil.

The Saudi pair "confessed ... that they came to ... join the jihad (holy war) after the fall of Baghdad" to US-led invasion forces in April 2003, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Kurdish police general Ismat Ertush as saying.

Ramian and Rushoodi figure on a 36-strong list of wanted terror suspects issued by the Saudi interior ministry in June 2005, 21 of whom it said at the time were out of the country.

With the incarceration of Ramian and Rushoodi in Iraq, only 17 on the list remain at large. The rest have been either killed or arrested or have surrendered to Saudi authorities.