A suspect who has been fingered in the deadly 2015 Islamic State group attack on a Saudi mosque yesterday committed Suicide while being arrested by security forces in Jeddah this week.
No fewer than four others were also injured when Saudi national Abdullah bin Zayed al-Bakri al-Shehri set off the explosives belt, the official disclosed.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that he was one of nine men who were declared wanted for the blast that had killed about 15 people — mostly police — near the Yemen border at the time.
‘When the procedures for his arrest were initiated, he blew himself up with an explosive belt, which resulted in his death and the injury of a resident and three security men,’ said a Presidency of State Security statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Al-Shehri, 39, was number four on a list of nine suspects in the 2015 blast, one of Saudi Arabia’s deadliest attacks in years. Number five was arrested in May 2016.
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It was gathered that members of a police special weapons and tactics team in the southern city of Abha frequented the targeted mosque.
The attack, which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for, came after a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen began in 2015, following the seizure of the capital Sanaa by Huthi rebels with support from Iran.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s incident has raised further fears in the area with security operatives mounting more security blocks while investigations continue.
In a related development, reports have shown that over 800 prison inmates have made their way out and escaped from a prison in Congo after some of the Islamic militants in the country had reportedly laid a massive siege on a prison in Butembo area of the nation.
The militant Islamist group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has also been blamed for the attack, according to the Congolese Army.
It has been reported that about 80 heavily armed militia had laid siege on the Congo prison to free some of the inmates, including 12 ADF women that were in custody, in an operation that lasted for about a quarter of an hour, Captain Anthony Mualushayi had reported.