Saudis arrest 12 Pakistanis over bombs

An interior ministry spokesman also named a suicide bomber who killed four security officers near a mosque in the sacred city of Medina as Naer Muslim Hamad, a 26-year-old Saudi man.

The ministry said he had a history of drug abuse.

Three people who allegedly carried out attacks in Qatif were also named. Their nationalities are not clear.

Their names were given as Abdulrahman al-Omar (23), Ibrahim al-Omar (20) and Abdulkarim al-Husni (20). The ministry said none of them had Saudi IDs.

The attacks in Qatif took place on the same day and were also suicide bombings.

A man died in Jeddah on Monday when attempting to detonate a bomb.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet but they are suspected to have been the work of people with allegiances to so-called Islamic State.

The group has targeted Saudi security personnel before. Some online observers pointed out that the guards had been protecting the Sunni-ruled country's Shia, who IS considers irredeemable apostates subject to punishment by death, and facilitating their access to the sacred cities Medina and Mecca.

The attacks happened at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, shocking many moderate Muslims. But after an IS spokesman called for "a month of calamity for unbelievers" there have been multiple attacks carried out by IS sympathisers across the world during Ramadan this year.

(BBC)