400 arrested in anti-terrorism sweep

Interior Ministry says suspects were involved in several deadly attacks in kingdom

Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday it had foiled planned Islamic State attacks in the kingdom and arrested more than 400 suspects in an anti-terrorism sweep.

The announcement came a day after a powerful blast in neighboring Iraq killed more than 100 people in one of the country's deadliest single attacks since US troops pulled out in 2011.

Residents and Iraqi security forces gather around a crater caused by a suicide car attack at a market in Khan Bani Saad, northeast of Baghdad, on Saturday. Ahmed Saad / Reuters

The Saudi crackdown underscores the OPEC powerhouse's growing concern about the threat posed by IS, which in addition to its operations in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings aimed at Shiites in the kingdom's oil-rich east and in next-door Kuwait.

The Saudi Interior Ministry accused those arrested over the "past few weeks" of involvement in several attacks, including a suicide bombing in May that killed 22 people in the eastern village of al-Qudeeh. It was the deadliest militant assault in the kingdom in more than a decade.

It also blamed them for the November shooting and killing of eight worshippers in the eastern Saudi village of al-Ahsa, and for being behind another attack in late May when a suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up in the parking lot of a Shiite mosque during Friday prayers, killing four.

The Interior Ministry said that in June it thwarted a suicide bomb attack on a large mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia that can hold 3,000 worshippers, along with multiple planned attacks on other mosques and diplomatic and security bodies.

Those arrested included suspects behind a number of militant websites used in recruiting, the ministry said.

Saudi Arabia branded IS a terrorist organization last year and has joined the US-led coalition targeting it in Syria and Iraq. Authorities have vowed to punish those responsible for terrorist attacks inside the kingdom, the Arab world's largest economy.

Dubai-based geopolitical analyst Theodore Karasik said the arrests are aimed at part on reassuring the country's Shiite minority, who long have complained of discrimination in the kingdom, which is governed by an ultraconservative interpretation of Sunni Islam.

"It sends a message that the Ministry of Interior is not losing a grip and wraps up the potential nodes of Daesh recruits in the kingdom," he said, using an alternate name for the group.

In Iraq, authorities said at least 115 people, including women and children, were killed in Friday night's attack on a crowded marketplace in the country's eastern Diyala province. The mostly-Shiite victims were gathered to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ended on Friday for Iraqi Shiites and a day earlier for Iraqi Sunni Muslims.

Police said a small truck detonated in a crowded marketplace in the town of Khan Beni Saad. At least 170 people were wounded in the attack, police officials said, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to brief journalists.

The IS group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on Twitter accounts associated with the militants.

Iraq's speaker of parliament, Salim al-Jabouri, said on Saturday that the attack has struck an "ugly sectarian chord", and added that government is making "attempts to regulate Daesh's terror from destabilizing Diyala security".