Saudi Arabia: attack on non-Muslim cemetery in Jeddah

Twelve days after a knife attack against a guard at the French consulate in Jeddah, a new attack was perpetrated this Wednesday morning during a commemorative ceremony for November 11.

A grenade was thrown over the wall of the cemetery of non-Muslims in the port city on the Red Sea, according to several sources contacted in Saudi Arabia by

.

It would have injured several people including a Greek national, according to a European diplomat, but no French.

Saudi guards were also reportedly affected.

Read also: Saudi Arabia: a security guard of the French consulate in Jeddah wounded with a knife, a Saudi arrested

Was France once again targeted?

"

" said a French source in Riyadh, the capital.

Another Western diplomatic source adds, however, that it was France that organized the November 11 commemorative ceremony.

"

", confides a security source.

According to the latter, the assailant was arrested.

On October 29, when the Basilica of Nice was the scene of a murderous attack, a guard from the French consulate in Jeddah was attacked with a knife by a Saudi national.

He was arrested shortly after by the Saudi authorities.

The guard had been injured, but his life was not in danger.

The attack on Wednesday does appear to be an attack.

Its theater once again is Jeddah, the second city in Arabia where the atmosphere is relatively more liberal than elsewhere in the country.

"We are awaiting a reaction from the French Embassy"

The authorities of the kingdom, where ultra-conservative Islam reigns, condemned the attacks which have bloodied France in recent weeks.

But at the same time, Saudi religious authorities denounced the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the weekly Charlie Hebdo.

In Jeddah, shortly after the attack on Wednesday, the US consulate issued a statement calling on its citizens to exercise the utmost caution.

The French Embassy in Riyadh observes silence.

"

", confides a diplomat from a European country, contacted.

Saudi Arabia was to host the G-20 summit in ten days, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the annual meeting of the greats of this world will take place virtually by video conference.

Read also: Saudi Arabia: US MPs call on their country to boycott the G20

After Emmanuel Macron's remarks on “Islamist separatism” and his commitment not to give up on cartoons, anti-French protests erupted in many Muslim countries and calls to boycott French products.

In some countries, the portrait of the French head of state has even been set on fire.

To calm things down, Emmanuel Macron engaged in a pedagogical exercise on the Qatari television channel Al-Jazeera and in the British daily

.

In recent days, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister of Foreign Affairs, has toured Egypt and Morocco to try, again, to dispel misunderstandings, repeating that France had nothing against Islam.