Riyadh arrests 7 militants planning 'terror' attack

Saudi Arabia said it had arrested members of a group planning a terror attack and seized large amounts of arms.

Saudi Arabia said it had arrested seven suspected members of a group planning a terror attack and seized large amounts of arms and explosives shortly after six security men were shot dead in Riyadh.

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Security forces arrested "seven individuals suspected of belonging to the group... preparing a terror attack," said an interior ministry statement yesterday, quoted by the official SPA news agency.

Raids on two Riyadh hideouts of presumed Islamist militants Thursday night netted a booby-trapped car and 21 explosives belts among large amounts of arms and explosives, the statement said.

The security operation - carried out a day ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca - followed the fatal shooting, also Thursday, of six security men and the father of a detained suspect during a search of his home.

In the two raids in the capital's al-Seli neighborhood - one on a resthouse and the other on a building - security forces also seized booby-trapped mobile phones, machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and launchers, pistols, hand grenades, detonators, military uniforms and 'weapons and ammunition caches', the interior ministry said.

The finds were the largest to be announced since the interior ministry said on January 12 that it had seized about 300 explosives belts and nearly 24 tons of explosive materials in its hunt for militants.