ISIL claims killing of retired Saudi officer

ISIL earlier said it had shot dead retired Brigadier General Ahmed Fayie Assiri “at his farm in Abu Arish area of Jazan”.

Riyadh // A retired security officer in southern Saudi Arabia was shot dead on Monday in an attack claimed by the ISIL extremist group.

Police spokesman Colonel Mohammed Al Harbi said that a man in the Abu Arish area of Jazan region, bordering Yemen, reported at about 2.30am local time that his father “was being shot at from an unknown source at his farm”.

Police did not identify the victim or give further details of his former security duties but said a “criminal investigation” was under way into the killing. Saudi authorities often describe ISIL-related attacks as “terrorism”.

Earlier, ISIL said in a statement that it had shot dead retired Brigadier General Ahmed Fayie Assiri “at his farm in Abu Arish area of Jazan”. The claim, which resembled other communiques by the group, said the man was killed with a silenced pistol.

ISIL has previously claimed attacks on Saudi security forces as well as deadly bombings and shootings that targeted the Sunni kingdom’s Shiite minority, which the extremist group considers to be heretics.

Jazan and other southern border districts have also been subjected to shelling from Yemen since last March when Saudi Arabia began leading an Arab military coalition against Houthi rebels in the neighbouring country.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press