RIYADH — The Interior Ministry said on Friday it had foiled a bomb plot by Daesh (the so-called IS) and blamed the group for shooting dead two policemen in Riyadh earlier this month. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki said three bomb-laden cars had been seized during investigations into the killings. A Saudi man arrested at a farm in the Huraimla governorate, north of Riyadh, on suspicion of carrying out the shooting has confessed that he was following orders received from Daesh in Syria, Al-Turki told a press conference. He also confessed to injuring two other policemen in a separate attack in March. The suspect was identified as Yazid Bin Mohammed Abdulrahman Abu Niyan, 23. The authorities offered a SR1 million bounty for an accomplice, another Saudi identified as Nawaf Bin Sharif Samir Al-Onaizi, who was wanted over several other criminal cases. During their investigation the authorities seized seven cars, three of them booby-trapped, as well as suspected bomb-making materials and tools, Al-Turki said. They also discovered machineguns, ammunition, money and several mobile telephones that revealed an exchange between the attackers and "terrorist elements in Syria", the Saudi Press Agency quoted Al-Turki as saying. The two policemen were killed in an April 8 drive-by shooting in an eastern district of Riyadh. Al-Turki said Abu Niyan allegedly carried out the shooting while his partner, Al-Onaizi, drove the car and filmed the attack. According to Abu Niyan, Daesh supplied them with the weapons, ammunition and money to carry out the shooting through a "third party whom they did not meet". — With input from agencies
