Armed man killed in gunfire exchange near U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia

Two radical were killed erstwhile an equipped antheral exchanged occurrence with Saudi Arabian information authorities adjacent the U.S. consulate gathering successful Jeddah, starring to the deaths of the gunman and a information guard, the U.S. State Department said connected Wednesday.

No Americans were harmed successful the incident, a State Department spokesperson said successful a statement.

"A idiosyncratic successful a car stopped adjacent the American Consulate gathering successful Jeddah Governorate and got retired of it carrying a firearm successful his hand, truthful information authorities took the inaugural to woody with him arsenic required, and the speech of occurrence resulted successful his death," a spokesperson for the Makkah Region constabulary said.

A Nepalese idiosyncratic successful the consulate's backstage information guards was injured and subsequently died, authorities quality bureau SPA reported.

Investigations are underway into the shootings.

"The U.S. Embassy and Consulate stay successful interaction with Saudi authorities arsenic they analyse the incident," the State Department spokesperson said.

The consulate has been targeted respective times successful caller years. In 2016, a termination bomber was killed and 2 radical were wounded successful a blast adjacent the compound.

And successful 2004, 5 radical stormed the U.S. consulate with bombs and guns, sidesplitting 4 Saudi information unit extracurricular and 5 section unit within. Three of the attackers were killed successful the battle and 2 were captured.

The 2004 onslaught successful Jeddah followed different deadly bombings and shootings against expatriate compounds, Westerners moving successful the kingdom and different targets that were portion of an al Qaeda run aimed astatine ousting the ruling Al Saud family.