DUBAI — Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry says four security officers were ****** and five others were ******* when a ******* ****** detonated his vest outside one of *****’s holiest sites.

The Monday evening ****** took place just as thousands of worshippers were about to hold sunset prayers in the mosque where the Prophet Muhammad is buried in Medina. The mosque is visited by millions of Muslims from around the ***** annually performing pilgrimage in Mecca.

The ministry statement, carried Monday on the state-run al-Ekhbariya news channel, said the ******** set off the **** after security officers raised suspicions about him. The ****** took place in a parking lot outside the sprawling mosque complex.

The sprawling mosque where the Prophet Muhammad is buried is visited by millions of Muslims from around the ***** each year during pilgrimages to Mecca. The area was packed with pilgrims for prayer during the final days of the ****** holy month of Ramadan, which ends in the kingdom on Tuesday.

Altayeb Osama, a 25-year old Sudanese visitor to Medina and resident of Abu Dhabi, said he heard two large booms about a minute apart as he was heading toward the mosque for sunset prayers. He said ****** and **** trucks were on the scene within seconds.

“It was very shocking that such a thing happens in such a holy place for Muslims, the second holiest place in the *****. That’s not an act that represents *****,” Osama said. “People never imagined that this could happen here.”

Qari Ziyaad Patel, 36, from Johannesburg, South Africa, was at the mosque when he heard a ***** just as people were breaking their fast with dates. Many at first thought it was the sound of traditional, celebratory cannon ****, but then he felt the ground shake.

“The vibrations were very strong,” he said. “It sounded like a building imploded.”

Saudi Arabia’s state-run news channel al-Ekhbariya aired live video of thousands of worshippers praying inside the mosque hours after the *********. It also showed footage of SaudiKing Salman’s son and the Governor of Medina, Prince Faisal bin Salman, visiting security officers ******* in the ***** and the site of the *********.

Also Monday evening, at least one ******* ****** and a car **** exploded near a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia, according to a resident there, several hours after another ******* ****** carried out an ****** near the U.S. Consulate in the western city of Jiddah.

Saudi Arabia has been a target of Islamic State ******* that have ****** dozens of people. In June, the Interior Ministry reported 26 ****** ******* in the kingdom in the last two years.

The possibility of co-ordinated ******* across different cities in Saudi Arabia on the same day underscores the ****** the kingdom faces from extremists who view the Western-alliedSaudi monarchy as heretics and enemies of *****. Saudi Arabia is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The ****** in the eastern region of Qatif did not appear to cause any ********, said resident Mohammed al-Nimr. His brother, prominent Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, was executed in January after a court found him guilty of sedition and inciting ******** for his role in anti-government ********.

Qatif is heavily populated by Shiites, who are a minority in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. Al-Nimr said that near the body of a ******* ****** was a car **** that also went off around the same time. He told The Associated Press the ****** detonated his ******* vest when most residents of the neighbourhood were at home breaking the daily Ramadan fast.