RIYADH: A Saudi fugitive was killed in a shootout with police after having escaped a raid on suspected jihadists, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

A policeman was shot dead during Friday’s raid in the eastern city of Taif in which three suspects were arrested and flags of the self-styled Islamic State seized.

The operation was launched to detain Yousif Abdulatif Shabab al-Ghamdi but he managed to flee, only to be later tracked down by police and killed in a shootout, said the ministry.

It did not specify when Ghamdi died but said he opened fire with an automatic weapon and a pistol prompting police to shoot, it said, quoted by the Saudi Press Agency.

Friday’s raid came with Gulf states on alert against attacks by IS, which has been blamed for deadly attacks on Saudi policemen and Shia mosque bombings in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

An-IS affiliated group in Saudi Arabia, calling itself Najd Province, claimed the suicide bombings in May and June at mosques of the minority Shia community.

Gulf interior ministers on Friday held an emergency meeting in Kuwait and called for coordination to confront “this serious epidemic”.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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