Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat—A car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint near a high-security prison in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday evening, killing the driver and injuring two security officers, the interior ministry said.

A security source told Asharq Al-Awsat the attacker had been identified as Abdullah Fahd Abdullah Al-Rasheed, a19-year-old Saudi national who had never traveled outside the Kingdom.

State television said the attacker was on the run after killing his uncle and stealing his car which he detonated at a police checkpoint close to the headquarters of Ha’er prison in southern Riyadh.

“While security officers were manning one of the security checkpoints on Ha’er Road in Riyadh, they directed the driver of a suspected car to stop. The driver initiated an explosion which led to his death,” Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Turki said in a statement.

Two security officers were taken to hospital but their condition was stable, he added.

The attacker shot dead his maternal uncle in his house in Riyadh before sunset on Thursday and then ran off with his car which he used in the operation.

The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) named the dead uncle as Rashid Ibrahim Safyan who was a Saudi colonel.

Ha’er prison houses hundreds of detainees convicted of militant crimes.

In a statement posted online, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed the attack.

Saudi Arabia is a target of terrorist groups, including ISIS which claimed two suicide bombings at Shi’ite mosques in the Kingdom in May.