[The Islamic State has heaped scorn on Saudi
Arabia and its royal family in recent years and has staged numerous attacks
inside the kingdom, mostly targeting Shiite mosques and Saudi security
personnel.]
By Ben Hubbard
 |
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Police officers stood
guard near the United States Consulate in Jidda, Saudi Arabia,
after a suicide bomber
detonated explosives Monday morning.
Credit Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
|
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — A suicide bomber
detonated explosives near a United States diplomatic mission in western Saudi
Arabia on Monday, and neighboring Kuwait said it had arrested a number of
people suspected of planning Islamic State-inspired attacks, according to
officials in both countries.
The developments in the two Persian Gulf
nations followed a bloody week in which the largest cities of three
predominantly Muslim countries were targeted in terrorist attacks that caused
mass casualties: Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL, has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and
Baghdad, and it is suspected of carrying out the one in Istanbul.
The attack and the arrests on Monday came
amid fears that extremists had planned further violence during the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan and for the Eid al-Fitr festival that celebrates its
conclusion this week.
The Saudi attack took place early Monday when
security officers confronted a man acting suspiciously near the United States
Consulate in the coastal city of Jidda. He detonated his explosives, killing
himself and wounding two guards, according to a report by the state-run Saudi
Press Agency.
The United States Embassy in Riyadh, the
capital, said in a statement that none of its consular staff members in Jidda
had been wounded, and it warned American citizens to limit nonessential travel
to the kingdom and to remain cautious inside it.
The Islamic State has heaped scorn on Saudi
Arabia and its royal family in recent years and has staged numerous attacks
inside the kingdom, mostly targeting Shiite mosques and Saudi security
personnel.
No group immediately claimed responsibility
for the blast on Monday, and the bomber has not been identified.
An attack by Al Qaeda on the same consulate
in 2004 left five staff members and four gunmen dead.
In Kuwait, officials announced the arrest of
four people accused of plotting two attacks in the country and said they had
repatriated a Kuwaiti family who had joined the Islamic State in Syria,
according to a statement published by the state-run KUNA news agency.
One of the suspects is a young Kuwaiti man
who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and was planning to bomb a
mosque during Eid al-Fitr, the report said.
The man said after his arrest that he had
received instructions from an Islamic State operative abroad, the agency
reported, to send a young recruit with no security record to obtain explosives
and guns for the attack.
Two Kuwaitis and a man from an unspecified
Asian country were arrested in the second plot and were found to have two
assault rifles, ammunition and the black flag of the Islamic State, the report
said.
Kuwait also said it had arrested and
repatriated a Kuwaiti man who had joined the Islamic State in Syria, as well as
his mother and son.
The man had studied petroleum engineering in
Britain and had moved to Syria to work in oil production for the Islamic State
after his older brother was killed while fighting for the group in Iraq, the
report said.
The report did not say when the arrests had
taken place.
Kuwait is a predominately Sunni country, but
Sunnis and Shiites live together with little of the sectarian tensions seen in
other Persian Gulf nations.
An Islamic State suicide attack on a Shiite
mosque in Kuwait City killed 27 a year ago. The bomber was a Saudi citizen.
Follow Ben Hubbard on Twitter @NYTBen.