‘Jeddah suicide bomber, a Pakistan national’

The suicide bombing near the diplomatic post was the first of three targeting the kingdom on Monday, including one outside of the sprawling mosque grounds where Prophet Muhammad is buried in the western city of Medina that killed four Saudi security troops and wounded five. 

Millions of Muslims from around the world visit the mosque every year as part of their pilgrimage to Mecca. The governor of Mecca, Prince Faisal bin Salman, who is a son of King Salman, was shown on state television visiting security officers wounded in the Medina blast and the site of that explosion within hours of the blast. 

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the Jeddah and Medina attacks, nor another at a Shiite mosque in the east of the country. The nature of the attacks and their apparently coordinated timing suggested the Islamic State group could be to blame. An Interior Ministry statement issued on Tuesday identified the man behind the Jeddah attack as 34-year-old Abdullah Qalzar Khan. It said he lived in the port city with “his wife and her parents.” The statement didn’t elaborate.

In that attack, the bomber detonated his explosives after two security guards approached him, killing himself and lightly wounding the two guards, the Interior Ministry said. No consular staff were hurt. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said authorities in Islamabad were working to get more details about the man. He condemned the attacks and expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia, saying the kingdom valued the contributions of Pakistani guest workers. “Terrorism is a global phenomenon and is not country or people-specific,” Zakaria said.