Saudi breaks up IS network, arrests 431 members: ministry

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia announced Saturday it has broken up an Islamic State group-linked network and made more than 430 arrests, foiling new attacks on Shiite mosques and a diplomatic mission.

 The IS jihadist group has claimed several deadly attacks in the Sunni-dominated kingdom.

 Authorities have "managed over the past few weeks to destroy an organisation, made of a cluster of cells, which is linked to the terrorist Daesh organisation," the interior ministry announced, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

 The alleged members were engaged in a "plot managed from areas of unrest abroad, with the aim of sowing sectarian sedition and spreading chaos", the ministry said.

 The cells were involved in several attacks and plots, including deadly suicide bombings of Shiite mosques in the kingdom's Eastern Province, it said.

 The ministry said 37 people were killed during the arrests, including security personnel and civilians, and 120 were wounded. Six "terrorists" were also killed in the operations.

 It said authorities had foiled bomb attacks plotted during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, including on a mosque used by security forces in Riyadh and other Shiite mosques in the Eastern Province.

 Among the 431 suspects so far rounded up, mostly Saudis, were 144 people accused of supporting the network by "spreading the deviant ideology on the Internet and recruiting new members".

 The ministry said 97 of those arrested were linked to a cell busted earlier and to a November attack on a Shiite mosque in the town of Dalwa that killed seven people, including children.