Riyadh: A Daesh terrorist killed three people Friday when he blew himself up in a car outside a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia, the second such attack in a week.
The bombing, again coinciding with weekly Friday prayers, was the third attack since November to target Shiites in the Eastern Province where most of the country’s Shiites live, and according to the interior ministry it killed three people and wounded four.
The suicide bomber - disguised in women’s clothing - detonated his device at the entrance to the mosque during Friday prayers, the official Saudi Press Agency cited a ministry spokesman as saying.
“Authorities have managed to foil a terrorist crime targeting people performing the Friday prayers at [Imam Hussain mosque] in Dammam,” the provincial capital, he said.
The bomber “detonated the explosive belt he was wearing at the mosque entrance as security officials were on their way to inspect him”, he said, citing preliminary results of the investigation.
The explosion happened just as the attacker’s vehicle stopped at a car park near the mosque, the spokesman said.
Daesh, in a statement distributed by militant accounts on Twitter, quickly said it was behind the attack, which it said was carried out by “soldier of the caliphate Abu Jandal Al Jazrawi”.
It said the bomber managed to “reach the target despite heavy protection” outside the mosque.
Activist Nassima Al Sada, who arrived at the site right after the latest attack, said the suicide bomber blew himself up after security volunteers tried to prevent him from entering the ladies’ side of the only Shiite mosque in Dammam.
After the previous week’s deadly attack, residents had set up security committees to search those entering mosques during prayers, witnesses said.
Neighbouring Bahrain condemned the “terrorist bombing” which “aims to fuel sectarian divisions,” in a statement on the official BNA news agency.
As the bomber struck in Dammam, cleric Osama Al Khayat, leading Friday prayers in the holy city of Mecca, slammed last week’s “ugly crime” and urged all residents across the kingdom to “stand up against this aggression... this great sin”.
