Saudi cop gunned down in Qatif
Riyadh : Gunmen have shot dead a Saudi policeman in the kingdom’s east, police said yesterday.
The drive-by attack happened early on Tuesday in Qatif, a district on the Gulf coast.
Four masked men opened fire, wounding the officer who died on the way to hospital, provincial police said in a statement.
“The police building and a patrol car were damaged,” said the statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
It was the fourth fatal shooting of a policeman in Qatif since January.
Parts of the eastern area have seen repeated security incidents since 2011, when a wave of protests began among people demanding reform.
Eastern Province residents have said clashes with police are also sometimes linked to criminal activity including the drug trade.
Extremists from the Islamic State group have claimed attacks against Saudi security personnel elsewhere in the kingdom.
A Yemeni accused of running over and stabbing a policeman this month in the southwestern Asir region had pledged allegiance to the IS group, the interior ministry said.
Rocket kills seven as probe begins
Saudi Arabia suffered its worst civilian death toll Tuesday in cross-border shelling from Yemen as the coalition launched an investigation into a deadly strike on a hospital.
A rocket fired by rebels in Yemen killed seven civilians in Najran city in the highest reported number of non-combattant casualties in the kingdom’s south since the Arab coalition intervened in Yemen 17 months ago.
“It killed four citizens and three residents,” the civil defence spokesman in Najran city said of the rocket strike, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
The attack came after the coalition launched an investigation Tuesday following international condemnation of an air raid on Monday that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said killed 14 people at a hospital it supports.
Another 24 people were wounded in the strike that hit the hospital on Monday in Abs in the rebel-held northern province of Hajja, the Paris-based aid agency said.
The coalition began its bombing campaign in March last year after Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized large parts of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.
Amnesty urges Yemeni rebels to free Baha’is
Amnesty International yesterday urged the Iran-backed Huthi rebels who control parts of Yemen to release 27 members of the minority Baha’i faith detained in the capital without charge.
The rights watchdog denounced the arrests as “a blatant case of persecution of a minority faith”.
Armed officers in balaclavas from Yemen’s rebel-affiliated intelligence agency in Sanaa stormed a Baha’i youth workshop on August 10 and arrested 65 people, including women and minors, Amnesty said.
Bahrain condemns attack
Bahrain yesterday strongly condemned the shooting in Qatif that lead to the martyrdom of a Saudi soldier.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed Bahrain’s sincere condolences to the family and relatives of the martyr, denouncing the attack as a terrorist crime that contravenes all religions, human and moral values.
“The ministry affirms full solidarity of the Kingdom with Saudi Arabia and supports all measures it takes to reinforce security and promote stability in its territories,” the statement said.
The Kingdom also voiced full support to all efforts exerted by Saudi to underpin regional and world peace and security.
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