Two people have been killed in an explosion outside the Prophet’s Mosque in the Saudi Arabian city of Medina.

Photos on social media show smoke billowing from a fire outside the mosque where Prophet Muhammad is buried.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. Some reports suggested it was a suicide bombing, while others said a gas cylinder had blown up.

Two other explosions struck near a mosque in the eastern city of Qatif on the Gulf coast on Monday evening, residents said.

Witnesses said a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Shia mosque without causing any other injuries.

They reported seeing body parts lying on the ground in the city’s business district.

“Suicide bomber for sure. I can see the body” which was blasted to pieces, a resident told the AFP news agency.

Nasima al-Sada, another resident, told AFP that “one bomber blew himself up near the mosque”.

A third witness told Reuters news agency that one explosion destroyed a car parked near the mosque, followed by another explosion just before 7pm local time.

“We are in the last 10 days of Ramadan and those places are crowded because of that for Maghreb [sunset] prayers,” Khaled Batarfi, a Saudi Gazette columnist, told Al Jazeera.

Early on Monday morning, two security officers were injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up near the US consulate in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

In January, at least four people were killed in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in the eastern al-Ahsa region.

In October, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Najran, in which at least one person was killed.

ISIL (also known as ISIS) had also claimed responsibility for an attack at a mosque inside a special forces headquarters in the city of Abha in August 2015. Fifteen people were killed in that attack.

•Source: Al Jazeera and agencies. Photo by Reuters shows worshippers at the Medina Mosque shortly before the blast.

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