4 killed in 'foiled' attack on Saudi police station

International Desk: Four people have been killed as an attack on a police station in Saudi Arabia's central Riyadh province was foiled, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Sunday, citing sources.

The four casualties had helped carry out the attack at the police station in Zulfi, a small city around 250km northwest of the capital Riyadh, Al Arabiya said.

Online videos - which Reuters news agency could not immediately verify - showed a car at a checkpoint with its doors open and two bloody corpses splayed on the ground nearby. Gunshots could be heard.

Al Arabiya said the attackers had been carrying machine guns, bombs and petrol bombs.

Armed groups have targeted security installations for years in Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, after the authorities crushed an uprising of members of al-Qaeda more than a decade ago.

Last year, a member of the security forces and a Bangladeshi resident were killed in an assault on a security checkpoint in nearby Buraidah and a policeman was killed in a separate attack in the western city of Taif.

The Saudi Ministry of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Zulfi attack.

Source: Al Jazeera


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