RIYADH: Saudi authorities have blamed militants linked to Al Qaeda for an unprecedented attack that killed Shia worshippers and highlighted sectarian tensions in the Sunni-dominated kingdom.
Masked gunmen in Saudi Arabia’s east late on Monday killed at least six Shiites, including children, during the celebration of Ashura, one of the holiest festivals of their faith.
Interior Ministry spokesman General Mansur Al Turki told Saudi media the attackers were “followers of the deviant ideology”, a term often used by authorities to describe Al Qaeda.
The day after the attack two Saudi policemen and two suspects allegedly linked to the incident died in a shootout in Qassim region, north of the capital Riyadh. Officers rounded up 15 suspects in several cities following the initial shooting in the Shiite-populated and oil-rich Eastern Province. Activists in the region gave the names and ages of seven people they said had been gunned down in the attack on worshippers in Al Dalwa, a town of several thousand people.
Five of the victims were aged 18 or younger, including 15-year-old Mohammed Husain Al Basrawi, and the youngest to die, Mahdi Eid Al Musharef, aged nine. The activists also named 12 people they said were wounded.
The interior ministry gave a different toll of six dead, up from five reported initially. Police said nine were wounded.
Turki told the Asharq Al Awsat daily that security services in six Saudi cities had hunted down suspects involved in the “terrorist” attack. In another sign of tensions linked to the incident, Saudi Arabia’s minister of culture and information AFP
