Killers of Saudi Shiites linked to ISIL

RIYADH // The assailants responsible for Shiite killings in Saudi Arabia earlier this month are linked to ISIL, including many who have been jailed in the past over suspected Islamist ties, the interior ministry said yesterday.

The ministry said it had broken up the “criminal network” behind the attack in Eastern Province, and that the group’s “head had links with Daesh”, the Arabic name for ISIL.

Documents and electronic equipment seized during raids after the attack “revealed contact between this terrorist organisation and Daesh abroad”, the ministry said.

Gunmen killed seven Shiites, including children, in the eastern town of Al Dalwa on November 3 during the commemoration of Ashura, one of the holiest occasions of their faith.

Four men carried out the attack after killing a man from a neighbouring village and stealing his car to use it in the Al Dalwa shootings. Security forces have since arrested 73 Saudis and four foreigners linked to the attack, the interior ministry said.

The ministry said three of the four attackers had served jail terms over links to the “deviant group”, a term usually used to refer to Al Qaeda.

In total, 32 of those arrested had been previously jailed, while 15 others had been on bail, according to an interior ministry statement reported by the Saudi Press Agency.

The attack in Al Dalwa raised concerns that sectarian violence and strikes against foreign nationals might escalate after the kingdom joined the US-led coalition against ISIL, which has seized large areas in Syria and Iraq, including Iraq’s Anbar province across Saudi Arabia’s north-eastern border.

ISIL militants mounted an offensive at the weekend to capture Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, in a bid to extend its control over the majority of the country’s Sunni towns and cities.

It has so far been repelled by stiff resistance from Iraqi forces and tribal fighters.

Ramadi was also among the targets in 15 airstrikes carried out in Iraq by the United States and it allies since Friday.

The US military’s central command yesterday said that the strikes also targeted Mosul, Asad, Baghdad, Tal Afar and Hit, destroying checkpoints and various ISIL fighter units, and hitting numerous vehicles and several buildings.

US airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq, which began in August, have helped government forces, together with Shiite militias and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, to regain territory captured by the militants. The most recent gains came in Diyala province north of Baghdad.

Police officials said Iraqi forces entered the towns of Saadiya and Jalawla on Sunday after fierce clashes with ISIL fighters.

The fighting was still continuing, with some pockets of resistance outside the two towns, the police officials said.

The Islamists seized Jalawla, 125 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, and Saadiya, 95km north of the capital, during a blitz in June that enabled ISIL to take control of large swaths of land in the country’s north and west.

In Syria, nine airstrikes carried out by the US-led coalition since Friday struck near the border town of Kobani, where Kurdish fighters and moderate rebels are resisting an offensive by ISIL, and in Raqqa, which is under the extremists’ control.

The strikes took out three of the militant group’s fighting positions, targeted several staging areas and hit one of its headquarter buildings, central command said.

Turkey said yesterday that 2,000 moderate Syrian rebel fighters would be trained by Turkish and US forces at a base in the central city of Kirsehir.

Turkey had agreed in principle to train and equip Syrian rebel forces as part of the US-led military campaign against ISIL, but details on the numbers involved and where the training would take place had yet to be announced.

The announcement by the Turkish foreign ministry comes after the US vice president, Joe Biden, met Turkish president Tayyip Reccip Erdogan in Istanbul over the weekend to discuss Turkey’s role in an anti-ISIL coalition.

The ministry said the 2,000 Syrian rebel fighters would be among a total of 5,000 being trained in several countries as part of the US-led campaign.

* Agence France-Presse and Reuters