Syrian expat, Filipino woman nabbed in anti-terror raid

JEDDAH: Saudi security forces have arrested a Syrian expatriate and a Filipino woman suspected of involvement in terrorist activities, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Saturday.
A ministry spokesman was quoted as saying Syrian national Yasser Mohammed Shafiq Al-Barazi and the Filipino woman were not only living together illegally at a residential house in Al-Fayha'a district in Riyadh, but were also making explosive materials and suicide bomb belts.
SPA said the Filipino woman was identified as Gioi Aban Bali Nang and accused of helping Al-Barazi in sewing and preparing the explosive belts. She was said to be wearing a suicide vest at the time of her arrest.
Al-Barazi was also found to have rented another apartment in Al-Jazirah district as a safehouse for persons wanted by security authorities.
He was detained in a police ambush in the capital on Wednesday, the spokesman said.
It was after Al-Barazi's arrest that police then raided his bomb factory which they found had been booby-trapped.
“The house as a whole was booby trapped by the perpetrator with severe explosive materials, indifferent to the lives of innocent residents and visitors to the neighborhood,” it said.
After the house had been made safe, police recovered two explosives belts, 10 containers of bomb-making materials and two firearms, the ministry said.
Asked on state television whether Barazi was suspected of links to the Daesh (Islamic State), the spokesman said authorities “did not yet have sufficient evidence to make any direct connection with this terrorist group.”
A series of attacks claimed by the Daesh in Saudi Arabia this year have killed dozens of people.
In July, authorities announced that they had detained 431 people, most of them Saudis, on suspicion of involvement in a Daesh cell.
Saudi Arabia has taken part in the US-led air war against IS in Syria since September last year raising fears of revenge attacks.

(Additional input from Agence France Presse)