RIYADH, Dec 29 (AFP) - A car bomb exploded near the interior ministry in the heart of the Saudi capital Riyadh late Wednesday, witnesses and a security guard said.
It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.
Witnesses said the car bomb went off before entering a tunnel near the ministry in the district of Al-Maazar, shattering windows in the building.
Security forces closed off roads leading to the area where both the ministry and the Intercontinental Hotel are located, an AFP correspondent said.
Suspected Al-Qaeda militants have killed more than 100 people and wounded hundreds more in Saudi Arabia since launching a wave of bombing and shooting attacks in May 2003, many of them targeting foreigners.
The car bomb blast occurred hours after Saudi security forces killed a gunman in Riyadh in a shootout as they combed a district where a terror suspect and a civilian were killed in a clash the night before.
The gunman opened fire from a car and hurled a bomb at security men, slightly injuring four of them, said an interior ministry statement reported by official media.
In the last major militant attack, gunmen stormed the US consulate in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah in broad daylight on December 6, killing five non-US employees of the mission.
Four of the gunmen were also killed in the attack, which was the first of its kind on a diplomatic mission in the oil-rich desert kingdom and claimed by the Saudi branch of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
Many militants and security men have been killed in clashes since the wave of attacks began and hundreds of suspects have been rounded up.
12/29/2004 18:15 GMT - AFP