RIYADH: A gunman killed five people at a Shiite gathering in eastern Saudi Arabia on Friday before being shot dead by police, the interior ministry said, in an attack claimed by a group linked to Islamic State militants.
The murders happened in the Qatif area of Eastern Province.
"As (a) result of his shooting, five citizens... were killed, including a woman. Nine others were wounded," an interior ministry spokesman said in a statement.
He said that at about 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) Friday a suspect with an automatic weapon "started to shoot randomly" at a Shiite hall used for commemorations in the Saihat area of Qatif city.
Police intervened and opened fire, killing the suspect, the spokesman said without giving details about the attacker.
"The situation is still under investigation," he said.
State television earlier reported that the gunman was 20 years old.
A group calling itself Islamic State-Bahrain State said in a communique that one of its "soldiers", Shughaa al-Dosari, "attacked a Shiite infidel temple with an automatic weapon" in Saihat.
A witness to Friday's attack, Ali al-Bahrani, told AFP that "a gunman began randomly shooting at people attending a sermon".
He said that a woman was killed.
Hussein al-Nemr, a local resident, said the shooting was one of three incidents on Friday evening.
Security tightened
Nemr, speaking from Saihat, said a gunman had stolen a taxi in neighbouring Dammam city, and a shooting also occurred at a mosque in Saihat but nobody was injured there.
"We are not sure yet if they are linked to each other," he told AFP, adding IS had warned of attacks.
Since the start of Ashura commemorations, Shiite security volunteers had been checking people at the entrances to houses of worship, Nemr said.
In July, the interior ministry said it had broken up an IS-linked network and arrested more than 430 suspects involved in attacks and plots.
Earlier Friday, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, named IS as an enemy of Islam.
"The reality is that they are shedding Muslim blood and destroying Islam. There is no good in them," he said during weekly prayers at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah mosque in Riyadh.
"They are neither an Islamic state nor mujahedeen or Islamic mercenaries. Their faith is falsehood... their reality is bloodshed and looting."
AFP
