Four police officers were killed and five others wounded Monday in a suicide bombing near the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, the Saudi interior ministry said.

 

The attacker detonated explosives taped to his body when police intercepted him as he was walking toward the mosque that holds the remains of the prophet Muhammad.

 

The blast occurred shortly ahead of the evening prayer, interior ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said.

 

Medina is Islam’s second-holiest site after Mecca.

 

At about the same time as the explosion in Medina, another terrorist set off explosives outside a mosque near the central market in the mainly Shiite eastern city of al-Qatif.

 

The attacker died, but no other casualties were reported.

 

Monday’s attacks, which came on the final day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, “do not respect either the sanctity of the place, or the time, or innocent people,” the interior ministry said.

 

Hours earlier, a suicide bomber struck near the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, leaving two security guards injured.

Saudi security forces managed to prevent the attempted attack on the embassy in the early hours of Monday, July 4, coinciding with the American Independence Day, one of the most important festivals in the United States.

Two security personnel guarding the consulate were injured, while the alleged attacker was killed.

Photographs published by media show the body of the alleged attacker on the ground, next to a car with the door open in a street in Jeddah, a coastsal city along the Red Sea near Mecca.

Jeddah consulate was also the target of an attack by Islamic radicals in 2004, in which nine people were killed.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings in Medina, al-Qatif and Jeddah. EFE

 

Riyadh, Jul 4 (EFE)