Saudi Arabia has arrested 113 people who it says had been planning attacks on oil facilities and security forces.
The Saudi interior ministry said its sweep netted 58 suspected al-Qaeda militants from Saudi Arabia and 52 from Yemen.
A spokesman said the groups have links to an al-Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen.
Police claimed the 113 were organised into three cells, including two planning suicide attacks on oil and security facilities in the oil-producing Eastern Province, home to the world's biggest oil refinery.
‘The 12 in the two cells were suicide bombers,’ security affairs spokesman Mansour al-Turki claimed.
‘We have compelling evidence against all of those arrested, that they were plotting terrorist attacks inside the kingdom.’
Authorities seized weapons, ammunition and explosive belts, and said the militants were linked to a ‘deviant group that has chosen Yemen as a base for the launch of its criminal operations,’ employing terms used to typically refer to al-Qaeda.
‘The deviant group is using elements inside the kingdom who came (to Saudi Arabia) under the cover of work or pilgrimage or entered illegally,’ the ministry said in a statement.
Sanaa, struggling to stabilise a fractious country, has come under international pressure to end a northern war and focus on fighting al-Qaeda, whose Yemen-based arm claimed responsibility for the attempted December plane bombing in Detroit.
