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Masked gunmen in Saudi Arabia killed five Shi’ite worshippers during a major religious commemoration, Saudi police said on Tuesday, in an unparalleled attack highlighting sectarian tension in the largely Sunni kingdom.
According to the police, six people were detained in Eastern Province of the shooting, which happened late on Monday night as Shi’ites were preparing for their Ashura, one of their holiest days. Nine other worshippers were reportedly injured in the attack.
SPA news agency reported that three assailants fired pistols and machine guns at a gathering in the village Al-Dalwa. Videos posted on the internet show bodies lying on the ground in a pool of blood in the eastern part of the country, where most of the kingdom’s Shi’ite population lives.
According to the Interior Ministry, six suspects “linked to the terrorist crime” were detained from the Eastern Province and the Riyadh region – although the Shi’ite minority and Saudi police are known to butt heads in the region, Monday’s shooting is the first time Shi’ites have been assaulted by gunmen.
Radical Sunni groups label Shi’ites as heretics and have assaulted them elsewhere in the Middle East, including bomb attacks on Sunday in Iraqi capital Baghdad which caused the death of 18 people.
The Ashura commemorations mark the assassination of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, by Caliph Yazid’s army in 680 AD, an event which is at the heart of the sectarian divide between Sunni and Shi’ite sects.
The supreme council of Sunni clerics in Saudi Arabia condemned the attacks as “criminal”, urging Saudis to “close ranks in standing up against the treacherous criminals”.
“The enemies of our religion and our homeland aim to attack our unity and stability”, the council said.
Iran, which is pre-dominantly Shi’ite, “condemned” the attack, foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said in a statement.
“The Saudi government must ensure the security of religious ceremonies and identify and punish those responsible for this terrorist act”, she said.