A suicide bomber blew himself up at a
Shi'ite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia during Friday prayers, residents
said, killing around 20 people and wounding more than 50, local
residents and a hospital officials said.
Family members of victims and well wishers are seen after a suicide bomb attack at the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh in the eastern province of Gatif, Saudi Arabia, May 22, 2015.
No one immediately claimed
responsibility for the bombing, the first to target Shi'ite Muslims in
Saudi Arabia since November when gunmen killed at least eight people in
an attack on a Shi'ite religious anniversary celebration, also in the
east where most of the country's minority Shi'ites live.
The attack could further harm relations
between Sunnis and Shi'ites in the Gulf region, where tensions have
risen during weeks of military operations in Yemen by a Saudi-led
coalition against Houthi fighters seen as proxies of regional Shi'ite
power Iran.
One witness described a huge explosion
at the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh where more than 150
people were praying.
"We were doing the first part of the
prayers when we heard the blast," worshipper Kamal Jaafar Hassan told
Reuters by telephone from the scene.
A spokesman for the Saudi Interior
Ministry, calling the attack an act of terrorism, said the bomber
detonated a suicide belt hidden under his clothes inside the mosque,
causing a number of people to "martyred or wounded".
"Security authorities will spare no
effort in the pursuit of all those involved in this terrorist crime,"
the official said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.
A hospital official told Reuters by
telephone that "around 20 people" were killed in the attack and more
than 50 were under treatment at the hospital, some of them suffering
from serious injuries. He said that a number of other people had been
treated and sent home.
A photograph posted on social media
showed the mutilated body of a young man, said to be the bomber. Other
pictures showed ambulances and bloodied victims being taken away on
stretchers.
In April, Saudi Arabia said it was on high alert for a possible attacks on oil installations or shopping malls.
In Yemen, a bomb at a Houthi mosque in the capital Sanaa on Friday was claimed by Islamic State.
Source: Reuters