Jeddah suicide bomber proves to be Indian instead of Pakistani

RIYADH: An investigation conducted following the suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia said that the bomber who hit near the Us Consulate in Jeddah was an Indian national. Earlier, the Saudi interior ministry had declared the Jeddah suicide bomber a Pakistani identified as Gulzar Hussain who was staying in Saudi Arabia for the last 12 years.

However, the latest Saudi interior ministry report said that the Jeddah suicide bomber was from the Indian state Maharashtra and his name was Fayyaz Kaghazi.       

Reuters adds: Saudi Arabia said a suicide bomber who attacked Masjid-e-Nabavi in the city of Madina on Monday was a 26-year-old Saudi citizen with a history of drug abuse.

Nineteen people, including 12 Pakistani nationals and seven Saudis, have been arrested in Saudi Arabia following the suicide attacks on Monday, including one near Islam’s second-holiest site in the city of Madina, the kingdom’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

Naer Muslim Hamad crossed a parking lot next to the Holy Prophet’s mosque in Medina and detonated an explosive belt near a security headquarters, killing four soldiers, the state news agency SPA quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying.

“When security guards intercepted him he blew himself up,” said the spokesman.

The statement also named three individuals who carried out bombings in the province of Qatif on Monday.

All of the men were in their early 20s and one had previously taken part in anti-government rallies.

Suicide bombers hit three Saudi cities on Monday in apparently coordinated attacks that targeted US diplomats in Jeddah and Shia Muslim worshipers in Qatif, jolting the kingdom as people prepared to break their fast on the penultimate day of the holy month of Ramazan.

A Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman told Al-Ikhbariya TV that the Madina bomber had traveled outside the country several times, most recently early this year. He said nitroglycerin from the blasts in Qatif and Madina seemed to match those found at the Jeddah attack suggesting they may have been coordinated.

The UN human rights chief described the bombing outside the Holy Prophet’s Mosque in Madina as "an attack on Islam itself". No group has claimed responsibility but Islamic State militants have carried out similar bombings in the US-allied kingdom in the past year, targeting minority Shia and Saudi security forces. Militant attacks on Madina are unprecedented. Islamic State has said the Saudi rulers are apostates and has declared its intention to topple them. Monday’s attacks highlighted how young Saudi men are being drawn to Islamic State, which has launched attacks on Shias in smaller Gulf Arab states and stepped up violence in the holy fasting month of Ramazan. King Salman, in a speech on Tuesday marking Eidul Fitr, said a major challenge facing Saudi Arabia was preserving hope for youth who faced the risk of radicalisation.

Salman said his country would strike with an "iron hand" against people who preyed on youth vulnerable to religious extremism. Saudi security officials have said Islamic State supporters inside the kingdom mainly act independent of the group in Iraq and Syria, its main areas of operation.