New IS affiliate claims responsibility for Saudi bombing

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — An alleged new affiliate of the Islamic State group in Saudi Arabia has claimed responsibility for an attack that targeted police and special forces in the kingdom's southwest and that killed 15 people.

The claims by the so-called Hijaz Province of the Islamic State appeared hours after Thursday's attack in the city of Abha, close to Saudi Arabia's southern border with war-torn Yemen. It was carried on IS-affiliated Twitter accounts and was also reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks militant messages.

The statement says an IS suicide bomber targeted a "monument of the apostate".

It was the first claim by the purportedly new IS branch. Hijaz is a reference to the historic western part of Saudi Arabia that is home to Islam's holiest sites of Mecca Medina.