Police shot dead three militants during an overnight clash in Jeddah

Police shot dead one man and a second blew himself up after a car chase on Friday, Reuters news agency reported.

The clash came hours after three other militants were killed in a late-night gun battle with police in the city.

It is not clear if any of the dead men are connected to a suicide bomb attack on Wednesday in the capital Riyadh, in which five people died.

Scores were also hurt when a security services building was hit in the attack, claimed by a group linked to al-Qaeda.

'Most wanted'

An Islamist group calling itself the al-Haramain Brigades said it bombed the headquarters of the government's anti-terrorism forces in retaliation for recent killings of Islamic militants by the Saudi security forces.

In the Jeddah incidents, Saudi state television reported that four of the dead were on Saudi Arabia's list of 22 most-wanted terror suspects and suspected al-Qaeda sympathisers.

Two men killed overnight were named as Mustafa Ibrahim Mubaraki and Ahmad Abdurrahman al-Fadli, both Saudis.