Riyadh: Saudi authorities announced yesterday that they had broken up an organisation linked to Islamic State and arrested 431 members, mostly Saudis, so far.
Authorities have “managed over the past few weeks to destroy an organisation made of a cluster of cells, linked to the terrorist Daesh organisation,” the interior ministry said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
It said network members were engaged in a “plot managed from areas of unrest abroad” to sow sectarian sedition and spread chaos. The cells were involved in attacks and plots, including deadly suicide bombings at Shia mosques in the Eastern Province.
The ministry said authorities foiled attacks plotted during Ramadan, including a bombing at a mosque belonging to security forces in Riyadh and Shia mosques in Eastern Province. The group also plotted to attack a diplomatic mission, ministry said without elaborating.
Among those detained are 144 accused of supporting the network by “spreading the deviant ideology on the Internet and recruiting new members”.
IS, which considers Shias heretics, claimed responsibility for mosque attacks.
It controls swathes of neighbouring Iraq and Syria, and has claimed widespread abuse, including the beheading of foreign hostages.
It has expanded operations in the region, also claiming an unprecedented attack on a Shia mosque in Kuwait and several attacks in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Gulf neighbours last year joined a US-led military coalition bombing IS in Syria, raising concerns about possible retaliation.
Interior Minister Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef said after a deadly mosque attack in May that Saudi security remains “under control”. “Incidents such as this will not destabilise us. We have been through bigger ones.”
He had led the crackdown on Al Qaeda which waged a campaign of shootings and bombings against foreigners and Saudi security personnel between 2003 and 2007. AFP
