An interior ministry spokesman also named a suicide bomber who killed four security officers near a mosque in the sacred city of Medina as Naer Muslim Hamad, a 26-year-old Saudi man.
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The attacks have since been roundly condemned by numerous Arab and Muslim organizations and states, including Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon; the Gulf Cooperation Council; the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; the International Union of Muslim Scholars; Egypt’s Al-Azhar; Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood group; and Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz today recommitted the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to “strike with an iron fist” the terror groups that seek to recruit youths to “extremism and violence”, and pledged efforts to “distance them from masterminds of misleading ideas”.
On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia identified the suicide bomber who struck outside the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah as a Pakistani resident of the kingdom who had arrived 12 years ago to work as a driver.
Body parts of three people were found after another suicide bombing in the mostly Shia Gulf city of Qatif, the ministry said earlier.
“As they tried to stop him, he blew himself up with an explosive belt, causing his death and the death of four security personnel”, the statement said, adding that five others were injured.
The attack coincided with the US July 4 Independence Day holiday.
Many Saudis and Muslims in other nations have expressed their shock at the Medina attack in particular, which the UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called “an attack on Islam itself”.
Cairo-based Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, condemned the attacks and stressed “the sanctity of the houses of God, especially the Prophet’s Mosque”.
“Saudi Arabia is a big target for them”.
The Saudi interior ministry identified the Jeddah attacker as Abdullah Waqar Khan, a Pakistani national in his early 30s.
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Even Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister of Shia Iran, commiserated with the Saudis on Tuesday: “There are no more red lines left for terrorists to cross”, he wrote on Twitter.
