Several wounded in explosion at WWI memorial in Saudi Arabia's Jeddah

JEDDAH: A bomb on Wednesday struck a World War I commemoration attended by European diplomats in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Al Jazeera reported.

Responding to the development, France’s foreign ministry claimed that representatives of several countries and European diplomats were in attendance.

“The annual ceremony commemorating the end of World War I at the non-Muslim cemetery in Jeddah, attended by several consulates, including that of France, was the target of an IED [improvised explosive device] attack this morning, which injured several people,” the ministry said.

“France strongly condemns this cowardly, unjustifiable attack.”

According to the publication, an official from Greece, who refused to be named, confirmed the explosion.

“There was some sort of a blast at the non-Muslim cemetery in Jeddah. There are four slightly injured, among them one Greek,” the official said, without providing further details.

Despite the explosion, that has left several  injured, Saudi officials have not commented on the attack and Saudi state-run media did not report it. 

Meanwhile, according to an AFP photographer,  roads leading up to the cemetery in central Jeddah were blocked by Saudi traffic police.

Last month, a Saudi citizen with a knife wounded a guard at the French consulate in Jeddah on the same day that a knife-wielding man killed three people in a church in Nice in southern France.

The French embassy in Riyadh has urged its nationals in Saudi Arabia to exercise "extreme vigilance".

Several countries are marking the 102nd anniversary of the armistice signed by Germany and Allied countries to end the war.