A suspect in a deadly 2015 Islamic State group attack on a Saudi mosque blew himself up while being arrested by security forces in Jeddah this week, Saudi officials said on Friday.
Four others were wounded when Saudi national Abdullah bin Zayed al-Bakri al-Shehri set off the explosives belt, the official said.
He was one of nine men wanted for the blast that killed 15 people — mostly police — near the Yemen border.
“When the procedures for his arrest were initiated, he blew himself up with an explosive belt, which resulted in his death and the injury of a resident and three security men,” said a Presidency of State Security statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Al-Shehri, 39, was number four on a list of nine suspects in the 2015 blast, one of Saudi Arabia’s deadliest attacks in years. Number five was arrested in May 2016.
The targeted mosque was frequented by members of a police special weapons and tactics unit in the southern city of Abha.
The attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, followed the launch of a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen in 2015 after Iran-backed Huthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa.
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