Islamic State group claims attack at Saudi WWI ceremony

Beirut, November 12

The Islamic State group claimed accountability on Thursday for the explosion the day past at a cemetery in Saudi Arabia the place American and European officers have been commemorating the top of World War I. The blast wounded three individuals.

The IS stated in a submit on its on-line Telegram channel on Thursday that its fighters have been in a position to plant the explosive machine on the Non-Muslims Cemetery within the kingdom’s coastal metropolis of Jiddah.

In a press release posted on certainly one of its Telegram channels, IS stated a gaggle of its militants have been in a position to plant the explosive devise on the within the metropolis of Jiddah. It supplied no proof however stated the machine went off when diplomats from “the Crusader countries” had gathered there.

One UK nationwide suffered minor wounds, in keeping with the British authorities. Greece’s Foreign Ministry stated a Greek policeman serving within the nation’s consulate in Jiddah was wounded. A Saudi safety officer was additionally evenly wounded, Saudi state media quoted a neighborhood official as saying.

Some 20 individuals of various nationalities have been attending the ceremony.

Wednesday marked the 102nd anniversary of the armistice ending World War I, a day that was additionally commemorated in a number of European international locations.

The bombing adopted a stabbing assault final month that evenly wounded a guard on the French Consulate, additionally in port metropolis of Jiddah.

France has been the goal of three assaults in current weeks that authorities have attributed to Muslim extremists. An Islamic State sympathizer additionally carried out a lethal assault in Austria earlier this month.

The Saudi Arabian Embassy in The Hague was sprayed with gunfire early on Thursday, leaving bullet holes throughout the facade and in a number of home windows.

Nobody was harm, in keeping with the Dutch police.

The current assaults included the beheading of a French instructor outdoors Paris who confirmed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his class. Three individuals have been later killed in a church within the southern metropolis of Nice.

The depictions of the prophet sparked protests and requires boycotts of French merchandise amongst some Muslims within the Middle East and South Asia.

The Non-Muslim Cemetery sits nears Jiddah’s docks, hidden behind timber alongside a significant thoroughfare within the metropolis. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission — which maintains locations of commemoration for navy service members from British Commonwealth nations — exhibits only one soldier buried on the cemetery, Private John Arthur Hogan, who died in June 1944.

The Islamic State group has not carried out any large-scale assaults within the kingdom since 2015. That 12 months, an IS suicide bomber attacked a mosque inside a police compound in Abha, 350 miles south of Mecca, killing 15 individuals within the deadliest assault on the dominion’s safety forces in years.

Eleven of the useless belonged to an elite counterterrorism unit whose duties embrace defending the hajj pilgrimage. AP