Saudi authorities on Tuesday said the suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the United States consulate in Jeddah was a Pakistani. They said that the man -- 34-year-old Abdullah Qalzar Khan -- arrived in the kingdom 12 years ago to work as a driver.
The suicide bombing near the diplomatic post was the first of three targeting Saudi Arabia on Monday -- including one outside the the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Islam’s second holiest site -- that killed four Saudi security troops and wounded five.
Millions of Muslims from around the world visit the mosque every year as part of their pilgrimage to Mecca.
The governor of Mecca, Prince Faisal bin Salman, son of King Salman, was shown on state television visiting security officers wounded in the Medina blast and the site of that explosion within hours of the blast.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the Jeddah and Medina attacks, nor another at a Shiite mosque in the east of the country. The nature of the attacks and their apparently coordinated timing suggested the Islamic State group could be to blame.
An interior ministry statement issued on Wednesday identified Khan as the man behind the Jeddah attack. It said he lived in the port city with ‘his wife and her parents’.
In that attack, the bomber detonated his explosives after two security guards approached him, killing himself and lightly wounding the two guards, the interior ministry said.
No consular staff was hurt.
Meanwhile, Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said authorities in Islamabad were working to get more details about the man. He condemned the attacks and expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia, saying the kingdom valued the contributions of Pakistani guest workers.
