Riyadh: Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it had dismantled a Daesh cell in the capital, Riyadh, in connection with a plot to launch a suicide attack on the defence ministry.
Two militants were killed and five others arrested in raids on three locations on Wednesday, an official source in the newly-created Presidency of State Security said in a statement on state-run television.
Deadly bombing and shooting attacks have been mounted by Daesh militants against security forces and Shi’ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia.
Thursday’s statement said a suicide bomber in the eastern Riyadh district of Al Rimal detonated his vest after security forces surrounded a house used to manufacture suicide vests and explosives.
Another militant was killed by security forces after he holed up with firearms in an apartment in the western district of Al Namar, it said.
The third raid was at a horse stable in the southern Riyadh suburb of Al Ghanamia, which, the statement said, had been used as a headquarters.
Security forces seized firearms and bomb-making materials, shown on state television along with a burnt out car and a damaged building where the first militant had blown himself up.
The suspects were not identified.
Security forces closed off several areas in Riyadh on Wednesday, and videos shared online showed a plume of smoke rising at one location.
The plot to attack the defence ministry, uncovered last month, allegedly involved two Yemeni nationals and two Saudi citizens.
