RIYADH: Unidentified gunmen killed two Saudi policemen in the mainly Shia city of Dammam late on Saturday, the interior ministry said, describing it as a “terrorist attack”.

The two officers were patrolling in a police car when they came under fire at around 11:30pm, a ministry spokesman told the official Saudi Press Agency.

They were both pronounced dead on arrival in hospital.

The spokesman did not specify who it held responsible for the shooting but there have been previous attacks on policemen in mainly Shia areas of the oil-rich east of the kingdom this year.

In January four policemen were killed in attacks.

The Shia minority in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia has long complained of discrimination and there has been sporadic unrest since the suppression of an uprising in neighbouring Bahrain sparked a wave of protests in 2011.

Published in Dawn September 19th, 2016