ISIS had recruited 12 Saudi brothers to carry out five terrorist operations.

Daesh (so-called ISIS) group had recruited 12 Saudi brothers to carry out five terrorist operations of which four were in Saudi Arabia and the fifth was against a famous mosque in Kuwait.

According to a statement by the Interior Ministry, four brothers were involved in the explosion that took place at the mosque of the emergency forces in Asir on Aug. 6, 2015, killing 15 military staff and injuring 33 others.

The criminals were the brothers: Majed Zaid Al-Bakri Al-Shihri and Abdullah Zaid Al-Bakri Al-Shihri — both in their early 20s. The other two brothers involved in the same crime were Taie Salim Yaslam Al-Saiari and Mutie Salim Yaslam Al-Saiari.

The security forces were able to nab two brothers on Sept. 16, 2015 who belonged to ISIS and were hiding in a villa in Al-Munsiyah district in the east of Riyadh.

They had turned the villa into a hide-out for terrorists but were caught by the security forces following a heavy exchange of fire. They were Ahmed Saeed Jabir Al-Zahrani (21 years old) and Mohammed Saeed Jabir Al-Zahrani, who was only 19.

The security forces found in the villa cash amounting to more than SR500,000, a machine gun, a pistol, five hand grenades and a large quantity of live ammunition.

Khaled and Saleh Al-Owaini, 19 year-old twins, who belonged to ISIS, killed their own mother and stabbed their father and brother on Jan. 21, 2016, using daggers and knives. The heinous crime against the mother and father shook the Saudi society where obedience to parents is still held sacred.

The twins admitted to the crime, which they committed in cold blood, and said they both belonged to ISIS, which had asked them to kill their mother, father and brothers.

Abdul Rahman and Ibrahim Saleh Al-Omar, two brothers, killed themselves when they exploded their booby-trapped belt at Faraj Al-Omran mosque in Qatif on Monday, July 4.

Majed and Mohammed Abdullah Al-Zahrani, two Saudi brothers, were involved in the terrorist explosion of the Imam Saddiq Mosque in Kuwait. Close coordination between the security forces in the Kingdom and Kuwait led to the arrest of the brothers.

ISIS is targeting young Saudis, usually in their early 20s, to commit terror acts and to kill their own relatives and close kin. Most of the terrorist operations in the Kingdom were carried out by Saudi terrorists who were between 20-26 years of age.

According to the Interior Ministry, only a single terrorist operation was carried out by a Saudi terrorist, who was about 35 years old. The terrorist who exploded a body vest at the security check point near the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah on Monday, Nair Muslim Hammad Al-Junaidi and the three other terrorists who were killed in Qaif were all under 20 years of age.

The series of explosions which targeted eight mosques in six different cities and towns in the Kingdom on Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, were carried out by six Saudis, who were between 20-30 years of age.

Khaled Ayed Al-Shammari who exploded a bomb at the Al-Anoud mosque in Dammam, killing four worshipers, was only 20 years old. ISIS has made it a point to recruit the teenagers to become terrorists making them dummies in its hands.

This article was first published by the Saudi Gazette on July 11, 2016.