Six mortar shells hit Saudi Arabia border post

Six mortar shells hit Saudi Arabia border post

Six mortar shells have hit an area near a remote Saudi Arabia border post, causing no causalities, says the kingdom’s border guard agency.

The agency announced that the shells landed on Wednesday near the country’s border post close to neighboring Iraq and Kuwait, deep in the desert, with no towns or villages nearby.

“Six mortar shells fell in an uninhabited area near the new al-Auja border guard centre of Hafr al-Batin in the Eastern Province. Thank God no damage resulted from it,” the official Saudi Press Agency quoted General Mohammed al-Ghamdi, the border guard media spokesman, as saying.

The spokesman added that he had been in contact with border guards of “neighbouring countries” for investigations into the source of the mortar shells.

Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province borders Kuwait and shares approximately 60 km (38 miles) of border with Iraq near the town of Hafr al-Batin.

The oil-rich province has been the scene of anti-regime protests since February 2011, with protestors calling for the release of political prisoners and an end to discrimination against minority Shia Muslims. However, the government has responded with heavy-handed crackdown tactics.

Activists say there are over 40,000 political prisoners in Saudi Arabia, many of them being held without trial or charges.

Anti-government protests intensified since November 2011, when security forces opened fire on protestors in Qatif, killing five people and leaving scores more injured.

In October 2012, Amnesty International called on Saudi authorities to stop using excessive force against the protestors.