Terror has come to home to roost for Saudis, says Iman Chairman

Image Credit: AFP

'Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia hit by gun and bomb attack'

GUARDIAN

A suicide bomb and gun attack on Shia worshippers has killed at least four people in eastern Saudi Arabia, the interior ministry said, extending a spate of attacks on the kingdom’s Shia minority.

At least 18 people were wounded in the assault on the Imam Rida mosque in the Eastern province town of Mahasen, a mixed Sunni-Shia district.

There was no claim of responsibility, but it resembled previous attacks by Sunni militants from Islamic State on Shias. The oil-producing Eastern province is home to Saudi Arabia’s Shia community.

This month Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia executed 47 people, most of them al-Qaida militants convicted of terrorist attacks as well as the Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The interior ministry said security forces had prevented two suicide bombers from entering the Mahasen mosque. One bomber blew himself up outside, killing four people. Security forces exchanged fire with the second attacker and arrested him.

Witnesses said worshippers overpowered the second attacker after he opened fire in the mosque, where 200 people were performing Friday prayers.

“The explosion happened outside the mosque, at the courtyard of the mosque, while another one entered with a machine gun. There are martyrs and wounded,” one witness said in an audio message circulated on social media.

“The young men grabbed his machine gun and beat him up, but he did not die. The police then came and took him away and the wounded were taken in private cars because ambulance cars did not arrive quickly.”

Another witness, speaking to Reuters by telephone, said a third attacker was believed to have been involved and that he may have fled.

Iman Chairman, Ribal Al-Assad, condemned the attack.

“I am shocked and saddened by yet more news of sectarian violence against Shias in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“This violence is a direct result of the Saudi regime’s own behaviour. The Saudi government has allowed extremist clerics to broadcast their message of hatred from Saudi soil for many years, and this has helped to radicalise a new generation of extremists. The government has also sponsored terrorism abroad, with the blind hope that it would not come back to haunt them.

“Now it has flared up at home, and it will continue causing serious instability throughout the Kingdom. The Saudi government must cease its irresponsible behaviour and truly tackle those clerics and broadcasters who are spreading the vicious ideology that justifies these atrocities.

“My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families at this very sad time.”