On Wednesday Saudi security forces shot dead two suspected Islamic State fighters and two other militants blew them up outside Makka, the interior ministry said.
Advertisement
Atthe al-Qurashi, the media spokesman for Mecca’s regional police department, said in a statement that the policeman was killed by an unidentified gunman while performing his duties Thursday evening.
A simultaneous raid occurred on a hideout in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, where two people were arrested, “and they are being investigated for their involvement in this cell”, the spokesperson said.
Authorities gave no details, but sources said that the forces surrounded a group of men in the Wadi Noman area south of the city where a group of five ISIS fighters had been hiding.
The operation came shortly after the Saudi security forces arrested Ukab Atibi, a member of the ISIS cell that had carried out a suicide attack on a mosque used by members of a local security force in southwest Saudi Arabia in August 2015, Al Arabiya said.
The raids were part of surveillance and follow-up, “including to what happened in Bisha on Friday”.
At that time, two suspects died in a shootout with security forces who foiled a auto bombing in Bisha, southwestern Aseer region.
Advertisement
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamic State has previously staged such attacks on security forces or the country´s Shi´ite Muslim minority, which is viewed by the jihadist group as heretics.
