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Terrorist cell trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards busted by Saudi Arabia

WION Web Team
Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaUpdated: Sep 29, 2020, 07:14 AM IST
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Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Photograph:(AFP)

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Riyadh has blamed Iran for an unprecedented missile and drone attack on the kingdom's oil facilities last year, a charge Tehran denies

Saudi Arabia on Monday said it had broken up a terrorist cell this month that had received training from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives.

The spokesman for the presidency of state security said in a statement on state media that three of those arrested had been trained in Iran while the rest were "linked to the cell in various roles".

Cell members "received military and field training, including on how to make explosives, inside Revolutionary Guards sites in Iran" for several weeks in late 2017, he said.

The statement said weapons and explosives were confiscated at two locations, a house and a farm, in the Gulf Arab state, the world's largest oil exporter and a key US ally.

On September 23, Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz had called for a comprehensive solution on Iran and disarming its affiliate Hezbollah in Lebanon during his first address to the United Nations General Assembly.

King Salman had said Iran has exploited a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers "to intensify its expansionist activities, create its terrorist networks, and use terrorism," adding that this had produced nothing but "chaos, extremism, and sectarianism."

Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran are locked in several proxy wars in the region, including in Yemen. Riyadh has blamed Iran for an unprecedented missile and drone attack on the kingdom's oil facilities last year, a charge Tehran denies.