Gunmen kill 5 in attack in eastern Saudi Arabia

Witnesses said the attack happened inside a Shiite mosque as worshippers were marking Ashoura. Sunni militants in neighboring Iraq frequently target Shiites during the holiday.

Saudi authorities arrested 15 people on Tuesday in connection with a shooting in the east of the kingdom the previous night that left five people dead and was apparently aimed at the country's Shiite minority.

The attack happened late Monday evening in the village of al-Dalwah, which is located in the country's eastern al-Ahsa region, a major oil-producing area that is also one of the main centers of the minority Shiite community in this Sunni-ruled OPEC giant.

The attackers shot the victims with pistols and machine guns, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. The agency provided no further details on the identities of the attackers or the victims, and said an investigation is underway.

Saudi Arabia's embassy in Washington said 15 men were arrested in six different cities on terrorism charges in connection with the shootings. The embassy said authorities initially arrested six people and after further investigation, arrested another nine.

The embassy said two members of the Saudi security forces and two suspected gunmen were killed in a shootout in Buraidah in the Qassim region in a security operation linked to the al-Ahsa shooting.

Witnesses said the attack happened inside a Shiite mosque as worshippers were marking Ashoura, which commemorates the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad who is revered by Shiites. Sunni militants in neighboring Iraq frequently target Shiites during the holiday.

The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals.

Amateur video posted online purported to show the inside of the Shiite mosque, called Husseiniya. Pools of blood could be seen on the floor and a witness held several spent rifle shell casings.

"There is blood everywhere. They entered inside the Husseiniya and started to open fire with rifles," said one of the people in the video.

The authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed but it was consistent with The Associated Press' reporting of the incident.

Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority has long complained of discrimination. Many in the ultraconservative Saudi Wahhabi school of Islam view Shiites as heretics, and the government is suspicious of nearby Shiite powerhouse Iran.

The attack comes weeks after a court in the kingdom convicted a highly revered Shiite cleric of sedition and other charges and sentenced him to death. The cleric, Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, has been critical of the government and was a key leader of 2011 Arab Spring-inspired Shiite protests in the east of the country.

___

Associated Press writers Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Matthew Lee in Washington, contributed reporting.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Gunmen kill 5 in attack in eastern Saudi Arabia
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1104/Gunmen-kill-5-in-attack-in-eastern-Saudi-Arabia
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe