Saudis Arrest 3 in Shooting of Dane

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/world/middleeast/saudis-arrest-3-in-shooting-of-dane.html

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Three Saudis suspected of having ties to the Islamic State extremist group have been arrested in the shooting of a Danish citizen here last month, the kingdom’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

It was the first attack on a Westerner believed to be carried out by supporters of the Islamic State in the kingdom. The group’s leaders have called on supporters to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia and the West.

Denmark and Saudi Arabia are members of the American-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Jens Madsen, the chief of Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service, said the shooting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, highlighted the “terror threat against Danish interests in countries where militant Islamists consider Western interests as attractive terror targets.”

The Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman, Mansour al-Turki, said “the perpetrators of this wicked attack” had trained for two weeks before carrying out the shooting on Nov. 22, which wounded the man as he drove from work in his car.

An online video released last week by Islamic State supporters shows a gunman pulling up beside a vehicle and firing at the driver. The ministry spokesman said the police arrested the gunman, the driver of his car and the man who filmed the attack, and seized the weapon used.

“The preliminary investigation showed that the perpetrators carried out this crime in support of the Daesh terrorist organization,” he said, referring to the group’s acronym in Arabic.

The Denmark-based dairy cooperative Arla Foods said the Saudi authorities informed it of the arrests made in connection with the shooting of one of its employees.

The Saudi police said in November that they had arrested 77 people, some of them with links to Islamic State militants abroad. The group is accused of financing, planning and carrying out an attack on Nov. 3 that killed seven Shiite Saudis in the kingdom’s eastern region.