{"id":2444,"date":"2015-05-22T16:20:55","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T16:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=2444"},"modified":"2015-05-22T17:02:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T17:02:44","slug":"suicide-bomber-strikes-shia-mosque-in-saudi-arabia-kills-at-least-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/suicide-bomber-strikes-shia-mosque-in-saudi-arabia-kills-at-least-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicide bomber strikes Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia, kills at least 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 21 people were reportedly killed after attacker detonates explosives during Friday prayers in Saudi Arabia’s Qatif province<\/strong><\/p>\n

RIYADH, (Saudi Arabia) \u2014 A suicide bomber killed at least 21 people during midday prayers on Friday at a Shia mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia, local news media reported<\/p>\n

Witnesses reported a huge blast at the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh, in Qatif governorate during Friday prayers,\u00a0where more than 150 people were praying.<\/p>\n

A doctor at the hospital told<\/a><\/span> media that about 70 injured, “some very critically”.<\/p>\n

Television pictures of the Saudi bombing showed shattered glass and debris inside the mosque, where scores were said to have been praying.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry said the bomber detonated a suicide belt inside the mosque, causing a number of people to be “martyred or wounded”.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

Saudi Interior Ministry officials said in interviews this week that they had seen an increase in violence by Sunni extremists, including three separate attacks near the capital, Riyadh, that\u00a0killed a total of three police officers and injured two others.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At least 21 people were reportedly killed after attacker detonates explosives during Friday prayers in Saudi Arabia’s Qatif province on Friday, 22 May 2015.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Bombing to escalate sectarian conflict further after Saudi-led coalition operation in Yemen<\/span><\/h3>\n

The bombing is one of the first potential signs that the country\u2019s intervention in the sectarian conflict in Yemen is escalating tensions at home as well.<\/p>\n

Members of the Shiite minority, who make up about 15 percent of the population and live mainly in the oil-rich Eastern Province, have long complained of discrimination by Saudi Arabia\u2019s Sunni majority and clerical establishment.<\/p>\n

The attack could further harm relations between Sunnis and Shias in the Gulf region, where tensions have risen during weeks of military operations in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition against Shia Houthi fighters seen as proxies of regional Shia power Iran.<\/p>\n

Islamic State claims Shia mosque bombing<\/span><\/h3>\n

The Islamic State (IS) group says it was behind a suicide bombing on a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0The claim was posted on Twitter with an image of the bomber. The\u00a0posting on Twitter on Friday that purported to come from a Yemeni arm of the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but it did not include details and its credibility was hard to assess.<\/p>\n

The attack in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province is the first to be claimed by the Saudi branch of IS, which was formally established last November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 21 people were reportedly killed after attacker detonates explosives during Friday prayers in Saudi Arabia’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[204,30,14,101,11,128,114],"class_list":["post-2444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","tag-crisis","tag-iran","tag-isis","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-terrorism","tag-war","tag-yemen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/saudi-mosque-bombing.jpg?fit=675%2C362&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-Dq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2450,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions\/2450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}