At least 3 dead in suicide attack at Saudi mosque

Dubai: A suicide bomber blew himself up at a mosque in Najran in southern Saudi Arabia on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding several others, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television reported.

The interior ministry confirmed a blast had occurred but had no immediate details.

“A person went to the mosque and did an explosion,” a spokesman said.

The attack on the Al Mashhad mosque occurred during maghreb (sunest) prayers, and authorities were investigating the bombing, www.sabq.org, a Saudi news website, reported, without giving further details.

A video shared by daily newspaper Al Watan showed panicked worshippers fleeing the scene and a child falling to his knees as sirens wailed and dust filled the street.

On August 6, a suicide bomber killed at least 15 people in an attack on a mosque used by members of a local security force in southwest Saudi Arabia, an assault that an online statement said was carried out by the Daesh terror group that calls itself the “Islamic State”.

In May, two suicide bomb attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia were claimed by Daesh. The first on a mosque in Qatif in the east of the kingdom killed 21 worshippers, and another four died in a bombing a week later at a mosque in Dammam.

Another bombing claimed by Daesh on a Shi’ite mosque in Kuwait in June killed 27 people.

The militant group, bitterly opposed to Gulf Arab states, is trying to stir sectarian confrontation on the Arabian peninsula to bring about the overthrow of the states.

It has urged young Saudi Sunnis in the kingdom to attack targets including Shiites.

There was no immediate word on the religious affiliation of the mosque. Ismaili Shiites are a majority in the Najran area.