RIYADH, Aug 4 (Reuters) - A Saudi soldier was shot dead
patrolling an area populated by minority Shi'ite Muslims late on
Friday, the Interior Ministry said, and one of the gunmen was
killed in the ensuing shoot-out.
The deaths bring to 11 the number of people killed in the
Qatif area since November in protests by members of Saudi
Arabia's Shi'ite minority over what they see as entrenched
discrimination.
"A security patrol was exposed to heavy fire from four armed
rioters on motorbikes when pausing at a street intersection in
Qatif," state news agency SPA reported, quoting Interior
Ministry spokesman Mansour Turki.
Turki said the gunmen had been arrested after an exchange of
fire in which one of them was killed, and said another man
suffering a bullet injury had been arrested at the hospital.
He added that the incident, which happened at 11 pm on
Friday evening, had led to the death of one soldier, named as
Hussein Bawah Ali Zabani, and the wounding of another, named as
Saad Miteb Mohammed al-Shammari, whom he said was taken to
hospital.
Saudi Shi'ites mostly live in the Eastern Province, also
home to the kingdom's oil industry, and complain they lack
access to government jobs, education and full rights of worship,
charges the government denies.
The world's top oil exporter follows the conservative
Wahhabi school of Islam, which regards Shi'ism as heretical.
Protests broke out in Qatif last year when Saudi troops were
invited by the government of neighbouring Bahrain to help its
Sunni royal family quash a popular uprising by the Shi'ite
majority.
Last month a new round of protests ended with three deaths
after police arrested and injured a firebrand Shi'ite cleric,
Nimr al-Nimr, who had preached sermons urging demonstrations
against the government.
Ten of the 11 people to have died in Qatif demonstrations
since late last year were young Shi'ite men, killed in what
Saudi Arabia said were exchanges of fire, but which local
activists described as peaceful protests.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have both accused Shi'ite regional
power Iran of fomenting the unrest among members of the sect in
both countries, which Tehran denies.
The Interior Ministry in January issued a list of 23
residents of the area who it said were responsible for attacks
on security forces, acting at the behest of "a foreign power",
widely understood to mean Iran.
Shi'ites in Qatif, who often raise the Bahraini flag in
shows of solidarity with their co-religionists in the tiny Gulf
Arab country, have repeatedly said the protests are not
organised by Iran.