Saudi Arabia says it has executed 81 prisoners in one day, including those convicted of killings and convicted members of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. The capital punishment appears to be the largest execution in the kingdom in recent memory.
The report provided no breakdown for those executed, not say where the executions took place.
“The kingdom will continue to take a strict and unwavering stance against terrorism and extremist ideologies that threaten the stability of the entire world,” the report added. It did not say how the prisoners were executed, though death-row inmates typically are beheaded in Saudi Arabia. The 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque remains a crucial moment in the history of the oil-rich kingdom.A band of ultraconservative Saudi Sunni militants took the Grand Mosque, home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray toward five times a day, demanding the Al Saud royal family abdicate. A two-week siege that followed ended with an official death toll of 229 killed. The kingdom’s rulers soon further embraced Wahhabism, an ultraconservative Islamic doctrine.