Saudi Arabia has
made a rare comment on the nature of its security operations,
confirming it was working with German investigators to track Islamist
militants behind bomb and axe attacks in July.
Saudi Arabia maintains it is always ready to work with foreign
countries to combat terrorism, but rarely speaks publicly on specific
cases.
A spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry, General Mansour
al-Turki, said Saudi and German security experts had met and exchanged
information over evidence showing that one of the attackers in Germany
had been in contact through social media with a member of Islamic State
using a Saudi phone number.
Turki said the suspect was in an unspecified "country of conflict," but declined to say whether he was a Saudi citizen.
"The investigation is still ongoing between experts in both countries
to try to find the parties to the case," Turki told Reuters in response
to a question on a report by news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday.
Spiegel said that traces of the chat indicate that both men were not
only influenced by but also took instructions from people, as yet
unidentified, up until the attacks.
Isis has
claimed responsibility for an attack in Bavaria in which a 17-year-old
refugee wounded five people with an axe before police shot him dead.
The group also claimed a bombing in Ansbach, southern Germany, which wounded 15 people.
The 27-year-old Syrian who blew himself up had pledged allegiance to
Islamic State on a video found on his mobile phone, investigators have
said.
Source:Reuters
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