Saudi Arabia authorities kill 6 Isis supporters who shot dead soldier relative and posted video online

Saudi authorities have killed six men they believe murdered their Saudi soldier relative and posted the video online as they pledged allegiance to Islamic State (Isis) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The video, that was posted in February, featured Badr Hamdi al-Rashidi, a member of Saudi Arabia's Special Emergency Force in the central, Qassim region.

In a case that has shocked Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry believes that six of Rashidi's relatives took advantage of their family links to the soldier, a member of the kingdom's anti-terror forces, to lure him to a remote area and shoot him dead.

According to the ministry sergeant Rashidi's maternal cousin Wael contacted al-Rashidi saying that he had something to deliver to his mother. Rashidi's wife became concerned as he did not return home from the meeting with Wael and would not answer his phone.

According to his family, Badr was in his 30s, and a father-of-two expecting a third child. He is believed to have been shot dead near a petrol station between the city of Buraidah and the neighboring Unaizah governorate which is west of Riyadh. Al-Rashidi's body was latterly found by residents of the area who heard gun shots.

The video then emerged online with six men pleading allegiance to Daesh (IS) leader al-Baghdadi. It is not clear at this stage whether or not IS jihadis ordered the killing or whether the six were acting independently.

And on 11 March Reuters reported that the Saudi state news agency cited the Interior Ministry in Riyadh saying that security forces killed the six men when they refused to surrender and then exchanged fire with police.

The six men were Wael al-Rashidi, Moataz al-Rashidi, Nail al-Rashidi, Zaher al-Rashidi, Sami al-Rashidi and Ibrahim Khalaf. They were said to be aged from 18 to 32.

IS views the House of Saud monarchy as illegal and the Saudi elite see the group as a growing security threat to their vast oil wealth. However, the Saudi's themselves has been accused of financing extremist groups and aiding the spread of the extremist Salafist ideology upon which the terror group is built.

IS has previously claimed responsibility for a series of bombings and shootings in largely Shia areas of eastern Saudi Arabia since November 2014 that have killed more than 50 people. Most of the dead have been of the Shia minority, but also more than 15 members of the security forces.