KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - A bomb blast on Saturday killed two foreigners including an American in the eastern Saudi city of Khobar, site of a deadly attack five years ago in which 19 U.S. servicemen died. (Map)
In Washington, U.S. officials said they saw no immediate link with last month's attacks on New York City and Washington for which Saudi-born Osama bin Laden is the prime suspect.
It was not immediately clear if the blast was politically motivated or part of a string of bombings that rocked the kingdom last year which Saudi newspapers linked to a lucrative illegal alcohol trade.
Saudi Arabia has detained several Westerners for those blasts in which at least one Briton was killed.
A Saudi journalist, speaking to Qatar's al-Jazeera television, quoted witnesses as saying that the explosion was a suicide attack perhaps carried out by a Pakistani or an Afghan.
The United States in June charged 14 suspected Muslim militants -- 13 Saudis and one Lebanese -- for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing and accused elements of the Iranian government of being behind the attack. Iran has denied involvement.
The Saudi Press Agency quoted a senior police officer as saying two people had been killed and four wounded, all foreigners, in the blast that occurred at about 8 p.m. (1 p.m. EDT) on Saturday in front of a shop on King Khalid Street in Khobar.
The officer, who is in charge of the eastern region, said authorities were investigating. The nationalities of the dead and wounded would be released later, he added.
A U.S. embassy official in Riyadh said one American was killed and another wounded in Saturday's blast. Neither was in the military.
``It appears that a pedestrian threw a package bomb into the shopping area...The motives are completely unknown,'' the U.S. embassy official said.
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the presence in Saudi Arabia of thousands of US and British airmen and their warplanes - who have been stationed in the country since the Gulf War 10 years ago - continues to irritate many Saudi Islamists. Osama Bin Laden - prime suspect in the plane attacks on New York and Washington - and his supporters call them Christian invaders of holy Muslim soil. Tensions have been high in the region following the 11 September attacks in the United States.