In the evening, two more blasts struck near a Shiite mosque in the eastern city of Qatif.
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Black smoke erupts from an explosion, believed to be due to a suicide bombing, at Masjid al-Nabawi in Madinah, Saudi Arabia, during Maghrib prayers on Monday, July 4, 2016.
The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday described the bombing outside the Prophet Mohammed’s Mosque in Medina as “an attack on Islam itself” and many Muslims expressed shock that their second-holiest site had been targeted.
The IS group has previously claimed other attacks against Saudi security officers and minority Shiites.
A security spokesman said the body of a bomber and two other people in the Qatif bombing have been identified but did not provide details.
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday identified the suicide bomber who struck outside the U.S. consulate in Jeddah as a Pakistani resident of the kingdom who arrived 12 years ago to work as a driver.
Militant attacks on Madina are unprecedented. IS has been responsible for attacks in Saudi since 2014 and has killed dozens of people.
Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the kingdom’s interior minister, said the attacks would “only increase our solidarity and make us stronger”.
“These crimes are all the more despicable as they were carried out as residents were preparing for Eid al-Fitr celebrations to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan”, the Secretary-General said in a statement issued today by his spokesperson’s office. Two security guards were wounded, and the bomber died, after security guards approached the man and he detonated his explosives, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
Saudi Arabia’s supreme council of clerics said the attacks “prove that those renegades. have violated everything that is sacred”.
The US embassy in Riyadh reported no casualties among consulate staff during the attack, which coincided with the US July 4 Independence Day holiday. Iyad Madani says the kingdom’s security is “the cornerstone of security and stability in the region and the Islamic world”.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said the attack confirms that terrorism “knows no religion or belief or any meaning of humanity”.
Saudi Arabia is part of the US -led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
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TH said it is saddened by the attacks and that nobody should take advantage of the situation for their own benefit. The extremist group views the Western-allied Saudi monarchy and government as heretics.
