Armed men in the Saudi capital launched coordinated car bombing attacks against the interior ministry and a troop recruitment center and exchanged fire with Saudi security forces.
Seven armed men were killed in the gunbattle with police in a northern district of Riyadh, Al-Arabiya television reported. The clash broke out about the same time as the the two car bombings - a remote control blast near the Interior Ministry and a suicide attack on the recruitment center.
One bystander was killed in the ministry blast near the ministry, Saudi TV said.
The damage to the Interior Ministry was minor.
The attacks sparked a jump in oil prices in New York.
The clash started with a blast at about 8:35 p.m. in central Riyadh near the Interior Ministry. Two armed men activated a car bomb by remote control in a traffic tunnel near the ministry, police said, according to the AP. A limousine driver was killed, Saudi TV said.
A half hour later, a second blast rocked the city. Two suicide bombers tried to drive a troop recruitment center about five miles away, but they came under fire from police and set off their explosives prematurely. The two bombers were killed.
The gunbattle in northern Riyadh broke out when armed men opened fire with small arms and threw grenades, police said. They later fled into a building that police surrounded as six armored cars sealed off the area.
An Interior Ministry official said a number of police were wounded.
Early Wednesday, a suspected supporter of al Qaeda was killed in Riyadh after tossing a bomb and shooting at security agents, according to a security official. On Tuesday, another suspect and a bystander were killed in a shootout in the same Riyadh neighborhood, according to an Interior Ministry official.
