A security guard outside a United States consulate in Saudi Arabia was shot dead when a gunman opened fire on Wednesday night, officials said. The gunman was also killed in the incident.
The attack unfolded near the American building in Jeddah, the Red Sea port city in the west of the country. The consulate was put into lockdown as Saudi security forces exchanged gunfire with the suspect, killing him, a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Post.
No American personnel were injured, the spokesperson said, adding that Saudi authorities are now investigating the incident. The shooter has not yet been identified and no motive has yet been established.
“A person in a car stopped near the American consulate building in Jeddah Governorate and got out of it carrying a firearm in his hand,” a spokesperson for Mecca’s regional police said, according to Al Jazeera. “So security authorities took the initiative to deal with him as required and the exchange of fire resulted in his death.”
An official Saudi Press Agency report did not name the security guard killed in the incident but said they were Nepalese. The State Department has expressed condolences to the guard’s family and loved ones.
The consulate in Jeddah has previously been targeted with deadly violence. In 2004, five militants armed with guns and explosives stormed the consulate and killed nine people including four Saudi security personnel and five staff inside. Three of the attackers were killed during the raid and two others were captured. One of the assailants was sentenced to 19 years in jail while another was sentenced to death, according to Reuters, with the attack linked to al Qaeda.
More recently, on July 4, 2016, a suicide bomber detonated a device close to the parking lot of a hospital opposite the consulate. The bomber, identified by the Saudi Interior Ministry as a Pakistani national, died in the blast, which also injured policemen. The bombing occurred in the same 24-hour window of two other suicide attacks across the country, one of which took place in Medina.
One of the assailants was sentenced to 19 years in jail while another was sentenced to death, according to Reuters, with the attack linked to al Qaeda.
More recently, on July 4, 2016, a suicide bomber detonated a device close to the parking lot of a hospital opposite the consulate. The bomber, identified by the Saudi Interior Ministry as a Pakistani national, died in the blast, which also injured policemen. The bombing occurred in the same 24-hour window of two other suicide attacks across the country, one of which took place in Medina—one of the holiest sites in Islam—where four people were killed.
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