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Two Saudi guards killed in suicide attack on Iraq border | |
(4 months later) | |
Two Saudi Arabian border guards have been killed and a third injured on the frontier with Iraq in a suicide attack, the Saudi interior ministry has said. | |
Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq, which is heavily defended by a series of earthworks and fences and monitored by camera and radar, has been attacked in the past by mortar bombs fired from a distance, but more targeted attacks are rare. | |
The unidentified attackers opened fire on a border patrol early on Monday near Arar. When security officers responded, one of the attackers was captured and detonated an explosives belt, the ministry said in a brief statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. | |
One of those killed was a senior officer, named by local media as Gen Oudah al-Belawi. | |
Saudi Arabia stepped up its security on the frontier in July after Islamic State (Isis) militants seized swaths of territory in Iraq, including Anbar province on the kingdom’s border. | |
Saudi forces have joined US-led air strikes against Isis positions in Syria, and the group has called for “lone-wolf” attacks by sympathisers in the country against its security forces, Shia Muslim minority and foreigners. |