Saudi Arabia says it has foiled a car bombing in Riyadh after security forces shot dead two "terrorists" it said were on the verge of launching an attack.
The attack, which was thwarted yesterday, the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, followed a devastating wave of bombings in Saudi Arabia and Muslim Turkey in the holy month of Ramadan blamed on the militant al Qaeda network.
State television quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying the shootout occurred at around noon (9 a.m. Irish time) as the "terror operation...was about to be carried out".
The security forces killed two unidentified men and seized a "vehicle which was primed for explosion", it said.
It gave no further details, but Riyadh residents said they heard gunfire shortly after 3 p.m. in the northeast of the city, an area housing several expatriate compounds. Some said the shooting followed a car chase.
Police cars were seen blocking off at least one road in the area by mid-afternoon.
Suspected al Qaeda bombers killed at least 18 people at a compound on Riyadh's desert outskirts just over two weeks ago. In May, triple suicide bombings killed 35 people in the capital.
The attacks have prompted a heavy security crackdown in Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam and birthplace of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Analysts had said they feared further violence at the end of Ramadan.