ISIL suicide bomber kills 21 at Saudi Arabian mosque

The militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in eastern Saudi Arabia, which killed and wounded several people during Friday prayers.

A man wounded in a suicide attack on the Shiite Imam Ali mosque during Friday prayers in eastern Saudi Arabia, is attended to by civil defence and medics. EPA

Riyadh // At least 21 people have been confirmed killed in a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia on Friday that was claimed by ISIL.

The bomber struck during the main weekly prayers in Eastern Province, where assailants linked to the Sunni extremist group killed seven members of the minority Shiite community in November.

The interior ministry said a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the mosque in the Shiite-majority city of Qatif.

“An individual detonated a bomb he was wearing under his clothes during Friday prayers at Ali Ibn Abi Taleb mosque ... in Qatif,” the state Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, quoting a ministry spokesman.

The health ministry was quoted by SPA as saying that 21 people were killed and 81 wounded, including 12 in critical condition.

ISIL said it was behind the attack, the first time the group has officially claimed an attack in Saudi Arabia, and vowed “dark days ahead” for Shiites, whom the group consider to be heretics, until militants “chase them from the Arabian Peninsula”.

A statement published online said “soldiers of the Caliphate” were behind the attack, and identified the bomber as Abu Amer Al Najdi who “detonated an explosives belt” in the mosque.

The Saudi interior ministry said the attack was carried out by “agents of sedition trying to target the kingdom’s national fabric”.

Saudi authorities last moth announced the arrests of 93 extremists, including 62 suspected of links to ISIL who were plotting attacks to “incite sectarian sedition”.

“Security authorities will spare no effort in the pursuit of all those involved in this terrorist crime,” a ministry spokesman said.

It was one of the deadliest assaults in recent years in the largest Gulf Arab country, where sectarian tensions have been aggravated by nearly two months of Saudi-led air strikes on Shiite Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

News websites in eastern Saudi Arabia posted photographs of bodies lying in pools of blood, bloodied prayer rugs and damage inside the mosque.

Qatif hospital issued an urgent call for blood donations and called in off-duty staff to cope with the high number of casualties, an activist said.

Local resident Naseema Assada said worshippers were celebrating the birth of Imam Hussein, a revered figure in Shiite Islam, when the blast occurred.

“The people are very angry,” she said, adding that they tried to stop police from entering the area.

Residents had feared such an attack was coming, she said, because the government was failing to curb hate speech on social media against the Shiite community, which complains of marginalisation.

“We don’t want a repeat of what is happening in Syria or Iraq here,” she said, referring to unrest in the two countries, sections of which ISIL claims as part of its “caliphate”.

“This is our country and we love it.”

Saudi Arabia’s most senior cleric, Grand Mufti Abdel Aziz Al Sheikh, denounced the attack.

“It is a criminal act aimed at dividing the sons of the nation ... and at sowing trouble in our country,” he said on state television.

The UAE condemned the attack, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said, and rejected terrorism in all its forms.

The United States and UN Security Council also condemned the bombing, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was not immediately able to confirm it was the work of ISIL.

* Agence France-Presse with additional reporting from Reuters and Wam