Riyadh: Three Saudis with suspected ties to Daesh are under arrest for opening fire and wounding a Danish citizen last month, the kingdom’s interior ministry said in a statement Thursday.
It was the first attack on a Western target believed to be carried out by supporters of the Al Qaida breakaway group inside the kingdom. Daesh leaders have called on supporters to launch attacks in Saudi Arabia and the West.
Denmark and Saudi Arabia are members of the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the IS group in Iraq and Syria.
Jens Madsen, the head of Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service, said the shooting in the capital Riyadh highlights the “terror threat against Danish interests in countries where militant Islamists consider Western interests as attractive terror targets.”
Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Al Turki said “the perpetrators of this wicked attack” had trained for two weeks before carrying out the shooting on Nov. 22, which wounded the man as he drove from work in his car.
An online video released last week by Daesh supporters shows a gunman pulling up beside a vehicle and firing at the driver. The video identifies the target as Thomas Hoepner.
Al Turki said police arrested the driver, the shooter and the man who filmed the attack, and seized the weapon used.
“The preliminary investigation showed that the perpetrators carried out this crime in support of the Daesh terrorist organization,” Al Turki said.
Denmark-based dairy cooperative Arla Foods said it was informed by Saudi authorities of the arrests made in connection with the shooting of one of its employees.
Saudi police said in November they had arrested 77 people, some with links to Daesh militants abroad. The group is accused of financing, planning and carrying out a Nov. 3 attack that killed seven Shiite Saudis in the kingdom’s eastern region.
Al Qaida militants seeking to topple the Western-allied monarchy launched a wave of attacks around a decade ago that killed scores of security forces and Westerners.
