Riyadh: Saudi Shiites vowed Saturday to continue commemorations of Ashura, among the holiest occasions for their faith, even after a gunman killed five people at one of their gatherings, in an attack claimed by Daesh.
Friday’s attack in the Qatif area of Eastern Province was the latest in a series of bombings and shootings linked to terrorist group in Saudi Arabia over the past year.
A suspect with an automatic weapon “started to shoot randomly” at a Shiite place of worship in the Saihat area of Qatif city in the evening, an interior ministry spokesman said in a statement.
Five Saudis, including a woman, were killed and nine others were wounded, he said.
Police intervened and opened fire, killing the suspect, the spokesman said without giving details about the attacker, adding that the shooting was being investigated.
A group calling itself Daesh-Bahrain Province said in a statement that one of its “soldiers”, Shughaa Al Dosari, “attacked a Shiite infidel temple with an automatic weapon” in Saihat.
A video, allegedly of the attack, posted on YouTube showed terrified people, among them many children, running frantically for cover inside the place of worship while gun shots could be heard.
Ali Al Bahrani who witnessed the attack said that the gunman was shooting at random as worshippers attended a sermon.
Jaafar Al Abbad said the attack “will not deter us from continuing to observe our rituals”.
Nasema Al Sada, from the Eastern Province, said that since the start of Ashura volunteers have set up checkpoints at the entrances to places of worship in coordination with authorities.
Security has been tightened at Shiite facilities since May when separate suicide mosque bombings killed 25 people.
Both attacks were claimed by Daesh.
During Ashura last year, gunmen killed seven Shiite worshippers, including children, in the eastern town of Al Dalwa.
The interior ministry said the unprecedented incident had links to Daesh - which has also targeted Saudi police.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours last year joined a United States-led military coalition that is bombing Daesh in Syria and Iraq where the terrorists have set up a self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.
In July, Saudi Arabia said it had broken up a Daesh-linked network and arrested more than 430 suspects involved in attacks and plots.
Earlier Friday, Saudi Arabia’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh, branded Daesh as an enemy of Islam.
“The reality is that they are shedding Muslim blood and destroying Islam. There is no good in them,” he said during weekly prayers at the Imam Turki Bin Abdullah mosque in Riyadh.
