Saudi Gazette report

 

JEDDAH —  A wanted terror suspect involved in a shootout in Taif early Friday was killed after an exchange of gunfire on Saturday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.



Security forces surrounded Yusuf Abdullatif Shabab Al-Ghamdi in his house in Al-Sharqiyah district in Taif, and asked him to surrender. But he started firing indiscriminately at the security forces, who responded by firing back at him. The exchange of gunfire resulted in his killing.



Al-Ghamdi had escaped after a shootout in Taif, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Jeddah at 4:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Friday, in which a policeman Awadh Siraj Al-Maliki was killed.



Three people were arrested in the raid on Friday. Security forces seized flags of the Daesh (the so-called IS) terrorist group, silencers and personal laptops from the suspect’s home.



Saudi Arabia last month announced a list of 16 people it said were involved in two deadly mosque bombings claimed by Daesh in May and offered a cash reward of SR5 million ($1.3 million) for information leading to their arrest.



Interior ministers of Gulf states Friday vowed to take a united stand against a string of deadly bombings targeting mosques claimed by the Daesh terrorist group.



At an emergency meeting in Kuwait, the scene of the latest suicide attack that killed 26 people last Friday, the ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states stressed the attacks were a threat to the stability of the region.



The ministers “underscored the importance of coordination and cooperation in confronting this serious epidemic... which is a threat to the security and stability of the GCC states,” said a statement issued after the meeting.