News / Saudi Arabia

Policeman injured in bomb attack in eastern Saudi Arabia

Friday, 29 April 2016 4:59 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 29 April 2016 5:10 PM ]

File photo shows Saudi police officers.

A policeman has been injured in a bomb attack near a Shia-dominated town east of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi state news agency SPA reported on Friday that the attack on Thursday targeted the parking lot of a highway patrol station in the Al-Ahsa region.

A police officer sustained "minor injury" and five cars were damaged.

A statement by an interior ministry spokesman said authorities started criminal investigations into the attack, which seemed to have been a roadside bomb attack.

Daesh, a Takfiri militant group mainly based in Iraq and Syria, later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its offshoot in the kingdom carried out the bombing and some other assaults in the area.

Police denied any other incident happened in relation to the attack. Daesh has been behind similar incidents in Eastern province over the past months. An attack on a mosque in al-Asha in January, claimed by Daesh, killed two people and wounded seven during Friday Prayers.

The blast comes amid some tense situation in the Shia-dominated oil-rich region, especially since the kingdom executed earlier this year a respected cleric, a move which sparked international condemnations. Daesh has also carried out attacks on Saudi security forces. In the most recent one earlier this month a police colonel was shot dead in the Riyadh area.

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