Riyadh: Unidentified gunmen killed two Saudi policemen in the mainly Shiite eastern city of Dammam early on Tuesday, authorities in the region said.


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The officers came under "heavy fire from an unknown source" as they parked their vehicle in a commercial area, the Saudi Press Agency quoted a police spokesman as saying.


The spokesman did not say who police suspected had carried out the shooting, the latest in a series of attacks on officers in Shiite areas of the oil-rich east of the kingdom.


Two policemen were killed in a similar attack in Dammam last month.


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


Saudi security forces have also come under attack by Sunni extremists linked to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group.