Saudi officials say they are looking for those responsible for a “bomb hoax” at a shopping centre in the country’s main commercial city, Jeddah. A Saudi-owned newspaper had earlier reported that 16 sticks of dynamite had been defused, after being discovered in three emergency exits of the al-Mahmal centre. They had been found by a security employee an hour before they were set to go off at 0900 (0600 GMT) on Saturday, the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat reported. But an interior ministry spokesman quoted by the official SPA news agency said someone had disguised plastic tubes as sticks of dynamite. An examination of the tubes revealed no explosives, he said. The seven-storey al-Mahmal centre has more than 100 shops and is on one of Jeddah’s busiest streets, King Abdul Aziz road. The centre is reported to have been briefly evacuated on Saturday, but then opened as usual. In recent years, there have been a series of unexplained blasts targeting Westerners and security services in the kingdom. Last November, a Dutch family escaped unharmed from a bomb attack in Jeddah. Full Story
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