Funeral prayers are carried out at the Grand Mosque in Makkah for the border guard officials killed in yesterday’s suicide bombing in Arar. (SPA)

Thousands of people attended the funeral on Tuesday of the Border Guard officer killed by a suicide attacker on the Kingdom’s border with Iraq on Monday.

Brig. Audah Al-Balawi was killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up. The funeral was held after Fajr prayer at the Grand Mosque in Makkah on Tuesday. Grand Mosque Imam Sheikh Abdullah Al-Johani led the prayer and then the body was taken to the Al-Adl graveyard in the city.

Those in attendance included the director general of the Border Guard. The deceased man’s family included his brothers Salem, Saad Ali, Muhammed and Ahmed, and sons Muhammad, Ryan, Sultan and Hattan.

The Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement on Monday that the four attackers killed three Border Guard officers. Two of the terrorists blew themselves up and the other two were shot and killed by Saudi officers. The incident took place at the Suef border crossing with Iraq just before dawn.

A Border Guard patrol had attempted to stop the infiltrators, but they opened fire at the officers. In gunfight that followed, one of the infiltrators was killed. When the officers tried to persuade another to surrender, he detonated an explosive device he was carrying and was killed instantly.

The remaining two terrorists were caught while attempting to escape but one of them detonated a bomb he was carrying, while the other was shot. Al-Balawi was killed in the explosion. The other martyred guards are Cpl. Tariq Halwani and Pvt. Yahya Nujmi. The injured officers are Col. Salem Al-Anazi and Pvt. Yahya Muqri.

According to his relatives, Nujmi, who came from Mowaqeda in Jazan, signed his wedding contract with his bride-to-be last week. He was the sole breadwinner of his family, comprising his parents, two brothers and five sisters. Halwani, who was married seven months ago, had been planning to visit his wife in Jazan.

Relatives with one of the sons of martyred Brig. Audah Al-Balawi after his funeral prayers in Makkah on Tuesday.

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