RIYADH // Two “terrorists” were killed in a vehicle explosion on Thursday in the Saudi city of Qatif, a foreign ministry official said.
The cause of the blast has not been confirmed, though Saudi television channel Al Arabiya reported that the vehicle was filled with explosives.
It was the latest incident in the Shiite-dominated Qatif area, where ISIL militants have carried out deadly attacks in recent years and where Shiite discontent has also raged.
“Two wanted terrorists were killed in the explosion,” Faisal bin Farhan, an adviser to the Saudi ministry of foreign affairs, tweeted from his personal Twitter account.
Saudi authorities use the term “terrorist” to apply not only to ISIL militants but also to those in the Eastern Province engaged in criminal activity, attacks on security forces, and anti-government protest.
Armoured and other police vehicles sealed off the area after the explosion, a witness said, describing the blast as “very huge”.
Video and photographs posted on social media showed a vehicle engulfed in flames in the middle of a street, with dense black smoke rising around it.
Other images showed what appeared to be at least one charred body lying beside a vehicle, which looked like an SUV, after firefighters extinguished the blaze.
The UAE condemned the bombing, state news agency Wam reported.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation denounced it as a terrorist and criminal act that sought to undermine the safety of Saudi Arabia.
In 2014, ISIL began a campaign of bombings and shootings in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, which includes Qatif.
In August, police said they shot dead a would-be suicide bomber targeting a mosque in the wider Qatif area.
Two months later, a gunman killed five people at a Shiite meeting hall in the Saihat district of Qatif.
Alongside ISIL attacks, discontent among the Qatif area’s Shiite community and general crime are also behind a wave of violence in the area.
In 2011, Shiite protests began in the area and developed into a call for equality in the country.
Police then issued a list of 23 wanted people, many of whom have since been detained or killed in shoot-outs.
Last month, violence escalated around a redevelopment project in the old section of Awamiya, a town in the Qatif area.
The interior ministry said criminals engaged in the drug and arms trade were involved in the unrest.
A police officer was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade, following the shooting deaths of an infant and a Pakistani man.
* Agence France-Presse
