Saudi Arabia: Bombings target Medina and Qatif mosques

Four security guards killed at Prophet's Mosque in Medina after another bomber targets Shia mosque in Qatif city.


Four security officers have been killed and five others injured in a suicide attack outside the Prophet’s Mosque in Saudi Arabia’s Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, the Saudi interior ministry said.

The bombing was the third attack to hit the kingdom on Monday, after blasts in cities of Jeddah and Qatif.

Photos posted on social media show smoke billowing from a fire outside the mosque where Prophet Muhammad is buried.

“Four security guards were martyred and five others wounded as a result of their opposition to the suicide attacker who detonated explosives near them as he was on his way to the mosque,” the ministry said on Twitter.

The blast occurred just before the Maghreb (sunset) prayers when people were breaking their fast inside the mosque, visited by pilgrims from around the world for the final days of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Qari Ziyaad Patel, 36, from South Africa, was at the mosque when he heard a blast just as the call to prayers was ending.


“The vibrations were very strong,” Patel told the AP news agency. “It sounded like a building imploded.”

Saudi Arabia’s state-run news channel, Al-Ekhbariya, aired live video of thousands of worshippers praying inside the mosque hours after the explosion.

The blast occurred just before the sunset prayers when people were breaking their fast [Saudi Press Agency/EPA]

Qatif explosions







There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks.

Early on Monday morning, two security officers were injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up near the US consulate in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.





Source: Al Jazeera and agencies


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