BERLIN: Saudi Arabia confirmed on Tuesday it was helping German investigators track militants of the Islamic State group behind attacks in Germany and said one had been in contact with someone using a Saudi-registered mobile phone.
\nIn a rare comment on its security operations, Riyadh confirmed that Saudi and German security experts had met and exchanged information on the contact made via social media, but the Middle Eastern contact was not located in Saudi Arabia.
\nA statement by the Saudi Arabian embassy, citing Interior Minister General Mansour al-Turki, did not specify which of two violent Islamist attacks last month this referred to.
\nOne was an axe attack on a train near Wurzburg that wounded five people and another was a bomb in Ansbach in southern Germany that caused 15 injuries.
\n\u201cThe investigation found that the IS contact person was not in Saudi Arabia but rather was in contact from the IS area,\u201d the statement said, referring to the area in Syria and Iraq controlled by the IS group.
\nThe statement said the attacker in the other incident had no connection whatsoever with Saudi Arabia.
\nAl-Turki had said earlier that Saudi and German security experts had examined evidence showing that one of the attackers in Germany had been in contact through social media with a member of IS using a Saudi phone number.
\nTurki said the suspect was in an unspecified \u201ccountry of conflict\u201d and declined to say whether he was a Saudi citizen.
\n\u201cThe investigation is still ongoing between experts in both countries to try to find the parties to the case,\u201d Turki said in response to a question on a report by news magazine Der Spiegel.
\nSaudi Arabia, which says it is always ready to work with foreign countries to fight terrorism, rarely speaks publicly on specific cases.
\nThe 27-year-old Syrian, who carried out the Ansbach attack, had pledged allegiance to IS on a video found on his phone, investigators said.
\nDer Spiegel said traces of the chat indicate that both men had been influenced by, and taken instructions from, unidentified people before the attacks.
\nGerman foreign ministry spokeswoman Sawsan Chebli told a news conference on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia had offered to help Germany investigate attacks in Germany claimed by the militant Islamic State group.
\n\u201cGermany and other western countries have been successfully working together with Saudi Arabia on fighting terrorism for a long time,\u201d she said. Information passed on by Saudi Arabia had been key in helping prevent terrorist attacks in Germany in the past, she said.
\nGerman interior ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said the government welcomed Saudi Arabia\u2019s offer and added that cooperation with the security authorities there was of \u201csignificant value\u201d. He declined to comment on the status of investigations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN: Saudi Arabia confirmed on Tuesday it was helping German investigators track militants of the Islamic State group behind attacks in Germany and said one had been in contact with someone using a Saudi-registered mobile phone. In a rare comment on its security operations, Riyadh confirmed that Saudi and German security experts had met and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n