RIYADH – Several people were killed and many others were wounded on Friday when an explosion went off at a mosque in the town of al-Qudayh in the eastern Saudi Arabian, Shiite-majority province of al-Qatif, according to the Saudi Interior Ministry.
An Interior Ministry spokesman, quoted but the Saudi Press Agency, or SPA, said that security authorities responded to reports of an explosion in a mosque in al-Qudayh after Friday prayers, and added that more information would be announced later, however other media outlets have indicated that it was a suicide bombing.
Photos released on social networks depicted the mangled body of the suspected suicide bomber, as well as traces of blood on the floor, and ambulances evacuating victims.
Last November, a recording was released in which Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for jihad in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Baghdadi urged Saudis to revolt against the Shiites in their country, but also the ruling Sunni al-Saud family and the Saudi army.
Also in November, a number of unidentified assailants attacked a Shiite mosque in the town of al-Daluh, in the eastern Saudi province of al-Ahsa, which resulted in the death of eight people, and the subsequent arrest of 77 people allegedly involved in the attack, apparently on the orders of IS.
Saudi Arabia’s Shiite community accounts for about 10 percent of the predominantly population, while many of them live in the eastern part of the Sunni kingdom
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