The State Department is in touch with Saudi authorities but could not confirm reports as of Monday afternoon that Riyadh has detained nine American citizens on terrorism charges.
“What I can tell you is that we’ve seen these reports and are working hard to ascertain more details of them and the veracity of them,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters during his daily briefing.
“We are in touch with the Saudi authorities,” he added. “I don’t have anything definitive about the actual truth of these reports.”
The Saudi Gazette newspaper Sunday reported that nine Americans were arrested with 33 other suspects, including 14 Saudis, three Yemenis, two Syrians, an Indonesian, a Filipino, a United Arab Emirates citizen, a Palestinian and a citizen of Kazakhstan.
Four Americans were arrested last Monday and five others over the past four days as part of Saudi raids in the country, the paper reported.
The paper didn’t say whether any of the terror suspects were linked to the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility over the weekend for suicide bombings in a largely Shiite area in southern Damascus.
