A suicide bomber wounded two policemen at a checkpoint near a high-security prison in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

The group said that the bomber, identified by Saudi authorities as Abdullah al-Rashid, 19, had also killed his uncle, a colonel in the Interior Ministry, before blowing himself up, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the car bomb attack, according to a statement from his spokesperson.

"He is particularly saddened and angered by the fact that this attack comes ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday. He calls for the persons responsible for the attack to be brought to justice," said the statement.

The secretary-general wished speedy recovery to the officers injured and expressed his sympathies to the government and people of Saudi Arabia, said the statement.

IS's branch in Najd, the central region of Saudi Arabia, said on its Twitter account that Thursday's attack was a message to jihadists held in Riyadh's Al-Hair prison that they had not been forgotten.

"Let the Muslim captives in Al-Hair and everywhere know that we will not relent or tire until we release them from imprisonment, with permission from Allah," SITE quoted the tweet as saying.

IS named the slain colonel as Rashid Ibrahim al-Sufyan and said that Rashid had gunned him down in his own home.

The wounded policemen were in a stable condition in hospital, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

AFP - Xinhua

(China Daily 07/18/2015 page9)