Al-Turki said four Saudis were killed and 33 people were wounded in the attack.
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The suspects were members of 6 cells rounded up in pre-emptive raids in various parts of the kingdom. The newspaper said one of the nine US citizens was convicted by a Saudi court in 2007, while the rest are still being investigated. IS had claimed the attack in the southern city of Abha.
Fourteen Saudis, three Yemenis, two Syrians, an Indonesian, a Filipino, an Emirati, a Palestinian and a citizen of Kazakhstan were all also arrested last week.
On Jan. 29, four people were killed when a terrorist blew himself up at a Shi’ite mosque in Eastern Province.
The authorities said they would give SR 1 million for information that would net one of the suspects, but the figure would be increased to SR 7 million if two or more suspects are arrested.
The officials said initial checks did not show that Americans were among those detained.
Saudi Arabia has been increasingly clamping down on militant groups’ activities within the kingdom, particularly following a series of bomb attacks primarily targeting the country’s Shia minority.
The American embassy in Saudi Arabia is yet to comment on the matter, Reuters reported.
The latest update to the official list, which includes 5,158 detainees who are mostly Saudi nationals, was made on Monday.
The ministry added that Al Harbi, accompanied by his wife Abeer Mohammad Abdullah Al Harbi, also a Saudi national, transported the explosives belt in his vehicle from Riyadh to Asir.
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The Saudi clergy have denounced the group as “kharijites”, an early Islamic sect reviled by Muslims for its extreme ideology.
