Dubai: Saudi security forces undertook an operation against Daesh fighters in Makkah on Thursday, state television channel Ekhbariya said.
“The security authorities succeeded in their operation against a number of Daesh partisans holed up at a recreational area in Makkah,” the TV station said in a news flash.
It gave no details, but Al Okaz newspaper reported that the forces surrounded a group of men in the Wadi Noman area south of the city and four wanted men were killed in a gun battle.
Sabq news site said that the operation involved emergency services, security patrols, helicopters and Makkah police, adding that the operation started at dawn.
“Thank God, none of the security forces faced any injuries. Security services are now combing the area and searching for weapons belonging to the wanted men,” an unnamed source told Sabq.
In an earlier, two-day security operation that ended on Sunday, two Daesh suspects were killed and a third was wounded in southwestern Bisha province.
Daesh’s latest attack in Saudi Arabia occurred on April 28 in the east of the kingdom, wounding an officer on patrol.
Police said that the attack caused a “minor injury” to the police officer. It took place in the country’s predominantly Shiite east. Five vehicles were damaged.
A post on a website known to be used by Daesh sympathisers claimed the attack and said militants carried out other attacks in the area. The police’s statement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, did not mention any other attack.
In January, a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque in Al Ahsa, killing two people and wounding seven during Friday prayers.
Daesh has also claimed attacks on Saudi security forces, most recently early this month when a police colonel was shot dead in the Riyadh area.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has been hit by a spate of deadly shootings and bombings targeting security forces or its Shiite community since last year. Daesh’s local branches have claimed many of them.
The group views Shiites as heretics but is also bitterly opposed to the kingdom’s government, whom it regards as having betrayed Islam through close ties with the West.
— With inputs from agencies
