Saudi security forces foiled a terror plot targeting the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, exchanging gunfire with one of the suspects who blew himself up inside a home, Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry said.
Five people, including a woman, were arrested yesterday in security operations in Mecca, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news website said, citing the security spokesman of the Saudi Interior Ministry, Mansour al-Turki.
The Interior Ministry said an attack on the mosque was being planned by three terrorist groups, two based in Mecca and a third in Jeddah.
Al-Arabiya said a suicide bomber hiding in a house in the Ajyad al-Masafi neighbourhood of Mecca opened fire on security forces and later blew himself up. Five security force members and six other people were injured, the report said.
The Grand Mosque houses Islam's holiest site, the cube-shaped Kaaba that Islam's followers pray toward five times a day.
The United Arab Emirates has strongly condemned the terror crime.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in a statement, condemned the crime in the strongest words, and said the heinous crime shows the level to which the brutality of these terrorists has reached.
"No sane person can give any justification or explanation for such a crime," the statement said.
