A shooting on the perimeter of the United States consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ended on Wednesday with two men dead. One of them would be the alleged assailant and the other, a private security guard.
According to the official Saudi agency, an individual who was driving in the vicinity of the US legation got out of his vehicle carrying a pistol. The consulate’s security device would have taken the initiative, according to the agency, opening fire on the potential attacker. The resulting exchange of bullets killed both the suspect and one of the security guards, a Nepali national.
Yida, on the shores of the Red Sea, is the economic capital of the kingdom and its most cosmopolitan city. The Saudi authorities have not revealed the nationality or any details about the alleged attacker, nor about the nature or objective of the allegedly aborted attack.
It is, in any case, the week of the annual pilgrimage known as hajj, in which more than two million pilgrims are expected to Mecca. Most of them, through Jeddah and its airport. Not surprisingly, the city is connected to Mecca in less than an hour by the Spanish high-speed railway.
Within the climate of religious exaltation, this Wednesday was also the first day of the feast of the Lamb. Saudi Arabia, by the way, has been one of the first countries – along with Egypt and Jordan – to condemn the desecration and burning of a Koran precisely this Wednesday, in front of a Stockholm mosque.
The alleged assailant would have stopped his vehicle at 6:45 in the afternoon, being intercepted moments later. The Nepalese gorja who repelled the attack was taken to hospital alive, but succumbed to his injuries.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have been allies since the 1940s, but the relationship has cooled in recent years, especially after the accession to the White House of Joe Biden, who in the campaign had promised to play the crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, ” an international pariah.”
Although this has not happened, Bin Salman has continued to diversify the kingdom’s friendships, agreeing to a reduction in crude production with Russia, within OPEC, or, more recently, making peace with Iran -through Beijing’s mediation- after of years fighting behind the shadows.
Something that is already having encouraging consequences in Yemen, where the war had brought the poorest of the Arab countries to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe. Likewise, the thaw with Qatar has been completed, after years of unsuccessful blockade.
At the end of 2020, two diplomatic legations were the object of separate attacks in Jeddah, one of which was allegedly claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
