Suicide bomber kills two Saudi guards on Iraq border
Saudi media reported that a senior commander of the border guard was among the dead.
RIYADH (AFP) - Two Saudi guards were killed Monday in a suicide bomb attack on the kingdom s border with Iraq, the interior ministry said.
No group claimed responsiblity for the attack but Saudi Arabia is among countries that have joined the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against jihadists from the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.
Saudi media reported that a senior commander of the border guard was among the dead.
"A border patrol in Suwayf, in the northern Arar region, came under fire by terrorist elements," an interior spokesman said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.
As security forces killed one of the assailants, another attacker "detonated an explosive belt he was carrying," killing himself and two guards and wounding another, the ministry said.
The statement did not provide details on the number of assailants, their origin or a possible motive for the attack. It said an investigation was under way.
Saudi news website Sabq identified one of the victims as the commander of the border guards in the northern region, General Odah al-Balawi.
Saudi Arabia s top religious body, the Council of Senior Ulema, condemned the attack and reiterated its support for the government in its fight against extremist groups including IS and Al-Qaeda.
The head of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdullatif al-Zayani, also condemned "the terrorist attack on the northern border of Saudi Arabia".
In July, three shells fired from inside Iraq hit the Arar area, without causing any casualties.
In 2013, Iraqi Shiite group Jaish al-Mukhtar claimed it had fired six mortar rounds into a remote area of northeastern Saudi Arabia as a "warning" to the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia shares a more than 800 kilometre (500 mile) border with Iraq and has recently stepped up efforts to secure the frontier.
In September the kingdom inaugurated a multilayered fence, backed by radar and other surveillance tools, along its northern borders.
In November Riyadh announced it had expanded a buffer zone along the border by 20 kilometres (12 miles).
The kingdom has been taking part in US-led air strikes against IS in Syria, drawing threats of retaliation from the jihadists.
In a purported audio recording released on social media networks last month, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi warned Saudi leaders they would see "no more security or rest".
Last month, Saudi Arabia said it had arrested 135 suspects for "terrorism" offences.
The authorities said they had arrested three IS supporters for shooting and wounding a Dane in November.
A week after that attack, a Canadian was wounded in a stabbing while he shopped at a mall in Dhahran on Saudi Arabia s Gulf coast. Police arrested a Saudi suspect.
In November, Saudi Arabia also blamed IS-linked suspects for the killing of seven Shiites, including children, in the kingdom s oil-rich Eastern Province.
