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Saudi Shi'ite mosque bombed

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Sat, 30 May 2015, 7:34AM
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

Saudi Shi'ite mosque bombed

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Sat, 30 May 2015, 7:34AM

An Islamic State jihadist has killed three people as he blew himself up in a car outside a Shi'ite mosque in Saudi Arabia, the second such attack in a week.

It was the third attack to target Shi'ites in the oil-rich Eastern Province where most of the country's Shi'ites live, and according to the interior ministry it killed three people and wounded four.

The suicide bomber - disguised in women's clothing - detonated his device at the entrance to the mosque during Friday prayers, the official Saudi Press Agency cited a ministry spokesman as saying.

"Authorities have managed to foil a terrorist crime targeting people performing the Friday prayers at Al-Anoud mosque in Dammam," the capital of Eastern Province, he said.

The bomber "detonated the explosive belt he was wearing at the mosque entrance as security officials were on their way to inspect him", he said, citing preliminary results of the investigation.

The explosion happened just as the attacker's vehicle stopped at a car park near the mosque, the spokesman said.

IS, in a statement distributed by jihadist accounts on Twitter, quickly said it was behind the attack, which it said was carried out by "soldier of the caliphate Abu Jandal al-Jazrawi".

Friday's blast comes exactly seven days after the jihadist group sent a suicide bomber into another Shi'ite mosque in a village in Eastern Province.

Twenty-one people were killed in the May 22 blast, which was also claimed by IS.

Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Gulf neighbours last year joined a US-led military coalition waging a campaign of air raids against IS in Syria, raising concerns about possible retaliation in the kingdom.

Since late March, Saudi Arabia has also led a coalition that is bombing Iran-backed Shi'ite rebels who have seized large parts of Yemen and sent deadly shell and rocket fire across the border.

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