RIYADH: Saudi Arabia said on Monday it has arrested 17 people from three cells linked to the militant Islamic State group which planned to attack military and other facilities.

The interior ministry said 16 men and one woman were in custody. They are mostly Saudis but include one Yemeni, an Egyptian and a Palestinian.

They are the latest arrests connected with the Sunni extremist group in Saudi Arabia.

Since late 2014, the IS has claimed a series of bombings and shootings against Shias in the Sunni-majority kingdom, as well as the security forces.

Dozens of people have been killed, largely in Eastern Province, which is home to most of the country’s Shias whom the IS considers to be heretics.

“Months-long efforts culminated in the foiling of a terrorist plot that was to be carried out by a network made up of three cluster cells connected to the IS,” the ministry said in a statement to the official Saudi Press Agency. “They targeted security officials and security, economic and military establishments and citizens in different locations.”

The ministry said suspects wanted to attach a bomb to the car of a defence ministry employee in Riyadh.

They also targeted security students whom they planned to bomb with a remote-controlled device at a gate.

Police also disrupted the delivery of two suicide vests and separately prevented a suicide attack by a suspect who had monitored “religious sites” in Al-Ahsa region, which has a substantial Shia community.

Suicide vests

Attacks were planned to take place over successive days earlier this year.

The interior ministry added that, according to preliminary investigation, the suspects gave two suicide vests, training and automatic weapons to the bombers who attacked Al-Rida mosque in Mahasen, Al-Ahsa, on Jan 29. The Saudi bomber killed four people during Friday prayers at the mosque before worshippers disarmed and tied up his Egyptian accomplice who had fired on them.

Also in January, the suspects blew up the car of a soldier in Riyadh’s Aziziyah neighbourhood, the ministry said. IS group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has called for attacks against Saudi Arabia, which belongs to the US-led coalition bombing the jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

In August, police said they shot dead a would-be suicide bomber targeting a mosque in the Shia-dominated Gulf coast district of Qatif.

Earlier that same month, police arrested a Saudi and a Syrian on their way to bomb a restaurant in the same area after training by the IS, the interior ministry said. Three separate suicide attacks took place throughout the kingdom on July 4.

A Pakistani resident blew himself up near the US consulate in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, wounding two policemen.

Another blast occurred at a Shia mosque in Qatif, leaving the body parts of three people.

And near the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, four people died in the third suicide blast.

No group claimed responsibility, but CIA director John Brennan said those bombings bore the “hallmark” of the IS.

Authorities arrested 19 people, including 12 Pakistanis, after the July attacks.

Published in Dawn September 20th, 2016