Ishmael
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 18, 2011
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia on Friday. Local media reports said the bombing had killed at least 21 people during midday prayers.
The bombing appeared to be the first time that the Islamic State, which has seized control of much of Syria and Iraq, had officially claimed to have mounted an attack in the kingdom. The claim could not be independently confirmed.
The attack was a sign that Saudi Arabia's intervention in the sectarian conflict in Yemen may be escalating tensions at home.
Members of the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia, who make up about 15 percent of the population and live mainly in the Eastern Province, have long complained of insults and discrimination by Saudi Arabia's Sunni majority and its clerical establishment.
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During Saudi Arabia's two-month air campaign against the Houthi movement in Yemen, which practices a form of Shiite Islam and receives backing from Saudi Arabia's regional rival, Iran, imams at Sunni mosques and commentators in Saudi Arabia have frequently rallied the public around the war, in part by repeatedly denouncing Shiites as dangerous infidels.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/w...-arabia-shiites-sunnis-yemen-mosque.html?_r=0
