Local Editor

A police officer had been killed in a police raid targeting suspected "ISIL" members in the western and most populous province of Mecca.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement that the security forces "arrested three suspects, confiscated Daesh [ISIL] flags, silencers and personal laptops" during the raid in the city of Taif, located 80 kilometers [50 miles] east of the holy city of Mecca, on Friday.

Previously, two Saudi policemen, identified as Thamer Amran al-Mutairi and Abdulmohsen Khalaf al-Mutairi, were killed in an April 8 drive-by shooting as they were patrolling an eastern district of the capital, Riyadh.

On April 24, Saudi officials announced the arrest of a 23-year-old Saudi man identified as Yazid bin Mohammed Abdulrahman Abu Niyan, who had made a confession of affiliation to "ISIL" in Syria.

Spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry Major General Mansour al-Turki said at the time that "ISIL" supplied Abu Niyan and his Saudi accomplice Nawaf bin Sharif Samir al-Anzi with weapons, ammunition and money to carry out the attack on the security forces through a "third party whom they did not meet," and is believed to be of Moroccan nationality.

The official said Abu Niyan carried out the drive-by shooting while Anzi drove the car and filmed it.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team