Cairo: Islamist group ISIS had took the responsibility of a suicide blast which claim 21 lifes in Saudi Arabia.
Notify that a suicide bomber killed 21 worshippers during Friday prayers in a packed mosque in Shia-dominated area of eastern Saudi Arabia, residents and the health minister said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
Eye witnesses said that more than 150 people were praying when the huge explosion ripped through the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh.
The Health Minister of Saudia said that a video posted online showed a hall filled with smoke and dust, with bloodied people moaning with pain as they lay on the floor littered with concrete and glass. More than 90 people were wounded.
Worshipper Kamal Jaafar Hassan said to Reuters, “We were doing the first part of the prayers when we heard the blast.”
It was the first attack targeting minority Shias since November when gunmen opened fire during a religious celebration in al-Ahsa, also in the east where most of the group live in predominantly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia.
Islamic State said in a statement that one of its suicide bombers identified as Abu ‘Ammar al-Najdi carried out the attack using an explosives-laden belt that killed or wounded 250 people, US-based monitoring group SITE said on its Twitter account.
A photograph posted on social media showed the mutilated body of a young man, said to be the bomber.
The Saudi Interior Ministry described the attack as an act of terrorism and said it was carried out by “agents of sedition trying to target the kingdom’s national fabric”, according to a statement carried by state news agency SPA.
The agency quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying that the bomber detonated a suicide belt hidden under his clothes inside the mosque.
Official said, “Security authorities will spare no effort in the pursuit of all those involved in this terrorist crime.”
Bureau Report
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