RIYADH: As many as 431 people suspected of belonging to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were arrested by Saudi Arabia authorities, local media reported on Sunday.
The interior ministry said in a statement carried out on Saturday, the ministry accused those arrested over the “past few weeks” of conducting several attacks, including an ISIL-claimed suicide bombing in May that killed 21 people in the village of al-Qudeeh, in the oil-rich eastern Qatif region.
It was the deadliest assault in the kingdom in more than a decade.
The statement further said that most of 431 suspects were Saudi nationals, but also included other nationals from the Middle East and Africa.
The report said authorities also stopped six successive suicide operations, which targeted mosques in the Eastern province, and timed with assassinations of security men.
