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Saudi authorities on Wednesday blamed militants linked to the al-Qaeda for Monday’s attack on Shi’ite worshippers that highlighted sectarian tensions in the predominantly Sunni kingdom.
Late on Monday, masked gunmen in the Eastern Province killed six Shi’ite worshippers, including children, during the commemoration of Ashura, one of the holiest days of the Shi’ite faith.
Interior Ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki said that the attackers were “followers of the deviant ideology”, using the term Saudi authorities use to describe the al-Qaeda.
On Tuesday, two suspects and two Saudi policemen allegedly connected to the incident were killed in a shootout in the region of Qassim, to the north of capital Riyadh.
Officers have rounded up fifteen suspects in different cities following the shooting on Monday in the predominantly Shi’ite Eastern Province. Activists from the region have gathered information on all worshippers gunned down in the town of Al-Dawda. Reportedly, five of the victims were 18 years of age or younger, with nine-year-old Mahdi Eid Al-Musharef being the youngest of the fallen. The activists added that twelve people were injured in the attack.
The interior ministry had initially given a death toll of five, but soon updated in to six; Saudi police have added that nine people were wounded in the attack.
Radical Sunnis consider Shi’ites heretics and have targeted them in other parts of the region, including multiple attacks in Baghdad that killed over 40 people only 48 hours before Monday’s shooting.
The Ashura commemorations mark the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, at the hands of Caliph Yazid’s army in 680 AD, an event that is an important dividing factor between Islam’s Sunni and Shi’ite sects. Thousands of people, including Sunnis, are expected to attend the victim’s funeral on Friday.