Three Saudi security officers were wounded, one critically, by gunfire outside a police station in a flashpoint village in the mostly Shi'ite Muslim area of Qatif, the government said on Tuesday.

The incident, which an Interior Ministry spokesman said had taken place on Monday night, follows four deaths during a police raid in the same village, al-Awamiyah, last week, as tensions with minority Shi'ites rise after months of comparative calm.

"While a number of security men were in front of the Awamiyah police headquarters discharging their duties, they were exposed to heavy fire by unknown people from a neighbouring farm which wounded three of them, one critically," the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an Interior Ministry spokesman.

It said the authorities were working to identify those responsible.

In last week's incident, police raided a house looking for a man wanted in connection with unrest, and an exchange of fire led to the deaths of two of the house's inhabitants and two members of the security forces.-Reuters