At least three police officers have been killed and several others injured in an attack by unidentified armed men against a police station in Saudi Arabia’s western and most populous province of Mecca.
Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the assailants stormed the station in the city of Taif, located 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the holy city of Mecca, on Friday. Witnesses said one of the attackers was later detained as he sought to flee.
Although no group or individual has claimed responsibility for the assault.
Previously, two Saudi policemen, identified as Thamer Amran al-Mutairi and Abdulmohsen Khalaf al-Mutairi, were killed in an April 8 drive-by shooting as they were patrolling an eastern district of the capital, Riyadh.
On April 24, Saudi officials announced the arrest of a 23-year-old Saudi man identified as Yazid bin Mohammed Abdulrahman Abu Niyan, who had made a confession of affiliation to ISIL in Syria.
Spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry Major General Mansour al-Turki said at the time that ISIL supplied Abu Niyan and his Saudi accomplice Nawaf bin Sharif Samir al-Anzi with weapons, ammunition and money to carry out the attack on the security forces through a “third party whom they did not meet,” and is believed to be of Moroccan nationality.
The official said Abu Niyan carried out the drive-by shooting while Anzi drove the car and filmed it.
