Alwaght- Saudi Arabia says security forces have arrested over 45 members of a terrorist group that last year carried out bombing attacks in Medina and Jeddah.
"Investigations revealed they were directly involved in the crime of targeting worshippers in the Prophet's sacred mosque," Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman told reporters on Sunday.
The suspects, who included both Saudi and foreign nationals, were detained in the Western port city of Jeddah, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
“Thirty two of those arrested are Saudis, while... 14 others are from Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Jordan,” Major General Mansour al-Turki told.
An assailant carried out a bombing attack on the Prophet’s Mosque in the holy city of Medina on July 4, 2016, and killed himself and four security officials.
Turki said the group was also behind a suicide bombing near the US consulate in Jeddah in 2016. Both attacks took place in July during the final days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Two security guards were injured in that attack.
The Saudi Interior Ministry previously identified the Medina assailant as a Saudi national and the one in the Jeddah attack as a Pakistani individual.
Since late 2014, Saudi Arabia has witnessed a series of bombings and shootings mostly targeting the country’s Shiite Muslims in the eastern part of the country.
On the same day as the Medina and Jeddah bombings, two bomb blasts occurred near a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia’s eastern city of Qatif.
In his Sunday remarks, Turki provided no updates on the investigations into those attacks.
