The source said that up to 1,200 additional National Guard members — an elite corps led by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz’s son Prince Miteb that handles domestic security — had been sent to the Eastern Province.
“The deployment has been taking place as a show of force … a deterrent policy,” he said, adding that the total count of National Guard forces in the region was now more than 3,000.
Officials from the Interior and Foreign Ministries referred calls to the Defence Ministry and no spokesman was available to comment.