Alwaght-Multiple bomb attacks have struck Saudi Arabia at the Holy City of Medina and at the eastern city of Qatif in the port city of Jeddah in a dark Monday for the restless kingdom.
Local officials say a suicide explosion targeted the security headquarters of the Prophet's (PBUH) Mosque in Medina, the second-holiest site in Islam.
Multiple videos flooding social media showed charred corpses lying next to the burning husk of a car in the mosque’s car park, as police and ambulance sirens blared, and hundreds of onlookers filmed footage on their smart phones.
Initial death toll from the Medina blast included three suicide bombers and four security officers as five others wounded, Saudi Arabia's interior ministry said.
"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 struck moments before sunset prayers when people were breaking their fast inside the al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque.
The mosque is considered to be Islam's second holiest site after the Sacred Mosque, or Masjid-al-Haram, which surrounds the Kaaba in the city of Mecca.
Qatif
Meanwhile, in the Eastern Saudi city Qatif, on the Persian Gulf coast, two suicide bombers blew themself up outside a Shiite mosque on Monday evening without causing any other injuries.
Oil-rich areas of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province where Qatif is located are inhabited by the country’s Shiite Muslim population.
There has been no immediate report on possible casualties from the attacks and no group or individual has so far claimed responsibility of today's blasts in Saudi Arabia. Witnesses described body parts, apparently of a suicide bomber, in the aftermath. Most likely there will be no casualties there apart from the attacker, as worshippers had already gone home to break their fasts.
Jeddah
Elsewhere, early on Monday morning, a suicide bomber was killed and two security officers were wounded in a blast near the US consulate in the kingdom’s second city Jeddah.
The attack took place when security officers confronted a man acting suspiciously near the consulate in the Red Sea port city. He detonated his explosives, killing himself and wounding two guards, according to a report by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
Monday was the last night of the holy month of Ramadan, and marks the beginning of Eid, the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar.
ISIS Takfiri terrorist group has previously carried out a series of bombing and shooting attacks in Saudi Arabia since mid-2014 that have killed scores of people, mostly members of the Shiite Muslim minority and security forces.
The Saudi regime is itself blamed of sponsoring extremist Wahhabi ISIS terrorists in the West Asia region especially Syria and in neighboring Iraq.
