Dammam, Saudi Arabia: The remains of four Saudi “heroes” blown to pieces after preventing a suicide bomber from entering a mosque were buried in the kingdom’s east on Wednesday.
The ceremony comes more than a week after tens of thousands of mourners said farewell to 21 victims of a separate mosque bombing in the country.
Both attacks were claimed by Daesh.
Residents of the coastal city of Dammam said they expected another massive crowd for Wednesday’s joint funeral of Mohammad Al Arbash, Abdul Jalil Al Arbash, Mohammad Eisa and Abdul Hadi Al Hashim.
They died last Friday when an attacker wearing women’s clothes blew himself up at the entrance to Al Anoud mosque in Dammam.
Residents said three of the dead men were volunteers trying to protect the mosque after a similar attack a week earlier in the nearby community of Kudeih. The fourth man killed was another civilian who happened to be at the site when the blast struck.
“Because of that, they are heroes,” one resident said.
The bomber “detonated the explosive belt he was wearing at the mosque entrance as security officials were on their way to inspect him”, an interior ministry spokesman said.
Photographs of the scene showed pieces of flesh that the blast had hurled across a parking lot.
“Some parts of some of the bodies are still missing,” a second resident said earlier this week.
With community volunteers already inspecting people coming to mosques, the resident said the community was doing all it could to keep worshippers safe.
“It’s something hard to prevent. Just pray to God.”
The funeral took place in Saihat municipality, next to Dammam.
