Suicide bombing in Saudi mosque for security forces kills 13

A suicide bomber struck a mosque used by Interior Ministry special forces in the southwestern city of Abha on Thursday, killing at least 13 people, the ministry said.

The mosque was principally used by state security unit called the Special Emergency Force and 10 members are believed to have been killed, the TV channel reported.

According to the The Express Tribune, later, on the same day, Islamic State group said in an online statement that it carried out “a deadly suicide bomb attack at the mosque in Saudi Arabia’s predominantly Shia Eastern Province”.

“Saudi Arabia has been a principal target for ISIS, and the kingdom views the group’s sophisticated terrorist planning and recruitment strategies as a mounting challenge”, said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, an expert on Arabian Gulf states at the Washington Institute think tank. “Ten policemen and three workers were killed while nine were wounded, three seriously”, the spokesman said.

Earlier reports on Saudi television had put the death toll at 17.

A Saudi Interior Ministry official said that the bomb targeted police trainees as they were in the middle of prayer. It was carried on IS-affiliated Twitter accounts and was also reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks militant messages.

Both those attacks were claimed by an affiliate of IS fighting in Iraq and Syria and which emerged recently in the kingdom as well. In July, one man was killed and two security officers were injured in a suicide vehicle bombing in the capital Riyadh.

The National Guard serviceman was killed in the Najran region, in the south-west, said the Saudi-led coalition carrying out air strikes against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The kingdom recently launched a crackdown on the group that has seen hundreds of alleged sympathizers detained. That attack killed four security personnel and a civilian.

Analysts say the Islamic State wants to foment sectarian unrest by targeting Saudi Arabia’s minority Shiite community.

The Saudi security forces dismantled a cluster of cells in the Kingdom set up by Daesh and arrested more than 400 suspects during an operation that extended over weeks and concluded in the month of Ramada.

“The Secretary-General reiterates that there is no justification whatsoever for terrorist attacks or attacks on places of worship”.