Gunmen stormed the US consulate in Jeddah today in the latest of a stream of attacks against foreigners and foreign interests in Saudi Arabia, many of them blamed on the al-Qaeda network.

Here is a list of some of the attacks against foreigners in the oil-rich kingdom since 1995.

1995

November 13: A car bomb explodes at the Saudi National Guard building in Riyadh where US military advisers work. Five US soldiers and two Indian nationals are killed, and more than 60 people wounded. Al-Qaeda is blamed.

1996

June 25: A truck loaded with two tonnes of explosives destroys a building at the US military base of Khobar in the east of the country. Nineteen US nationals are killed and almost 400 people wounded.

2003

May 12: Thirty-five people are killed, including nine Americans and 12 suicide bombers, in attacks on three expatriate compounds in Riyadh on the eve of a visit by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who said they appeared to be the work of al-Qaeda.

November 8: Seventeen people, most of them Egyptian and Lebanese expatriates, are killed and 122 more wounded in a car bomb attack against a residence in a western suburb of Riyadh. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

2004

May 1: Six Westerners including two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Canadian, plus a Saudi, are killed when gunmen open fire on the offices of a Western company in the northwestern port town of Yanbu. The attackers and a Saudi national guardsman are killed in an ensuing car chase.

May 22: Hermann Dingel, a German national employed by Saudi Arabian Airlines, is shot dead in Riyadh.

May 29-30: Twenty-two people, including an American, a Briton, an Italian, a Swede and eight Indians, are killed and 25 others wounded when militants attack and take hostages at a residential complex in the eastern town of Khobar. A statement attributed to al-Qaeda says the network is determined to"cleanse the Arabian peninsula of unbelievers".

June 2: Unknown assailants fire on two US soldiers near Riyadh, wounding one of them, in an attack later claimed by al-Qaeda.

June 6: An Irish cameraman working for the BBC, Simon Cumbers, is shot dead in southern Riyadh, while his British colleague Frank Gardner is seriously wounded. This is the first attack on foreign journalists in Saudi Arabia.

June 8: An American trainer of the Saudi National Guard, Robert Jacob, is shot dead at his Riyadh home. Al-Jazeera television broadcasts a video on June 13, purporting to show the killing.

June 12: American Kenneth Scroggs is shot dead while his compatriot Paul Johnson is kidnapped in Riyadh. Both acts claimed by Al-Qaeda.

June 18: After threatening to kill Johnson if al-Qaeda suspects detained in the kingdom are not released within 72 hours, his captors say they have executed the American. Photos of Johnson’s decapitation are posted on an Islamist website, while Saudi authorities announce on July 22 they have found his head.

August 3: An Irish national, Anthony Christopher Higgins, is killed in an al-Qaeda attack on his office in Riyadh.

September 15: A British engineer, Edward Smith, 50, is shot dead in Riyadh in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda. He was working for telecommunications company Marconi, which is advising the Saudi national guard.

September 26: A Frenchman, Laurent Barbot, is shot dead while at the wheel of his car in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, in what Saudi authorities describe as a terror attack.

December 6: The US consulate in Jeddah comes under attack as gunmen storm the building and hold staff hostage.

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