Qatif and Dammam mosque bombings | |
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Location | Qatif & Dammam, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia |
Coordinates | 26°34′03″N49°59′30″E / 26.567374°N 49.991668°E |
Date | 22 May 2015 Qatif 29 May 2015 Dammam |
Target | Shia Muslims |
Attack type | Suicide bombing |
Deaths | 22 in Qatif 4 in Dammam |
Injured | 102 in Qatif 4 in Dammam |
Perpetrators | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant |
The Qatif and Dammam mosque bombings occurred on 22 and 29 May 2015. On Friday May 22, a suicide bomber attacked the Shia "Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque" situated in Qudeih village of Qatif city in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed at least 21 people. The event is the second deadly attack against Shia in six months. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
An estimated 14% to 15% of the approximately 16 million natives of Saudi Arabia are Shia Muslims, mostly living in the oil-rich areas of the Eastern Province where Qatif is located. The government of Saudi Arabia follows the strict Sunni Islamic "Wahhabi movement", which dominates religious institutions, courts and education of the kingdom and believes that Shia Muslims are not true Muslims; thus Shia have alleged severe discrimination in Saudi Arabia. [6] [7] According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report, Shia citizens in Saudi Arabia "face systematic discrimination in religion, education, justice, and employment". The report alleged widespread discrimination against Saudi Shia, including restrictions in the state education system, where Shia students were forbidden from learning about their religion and told they were unbelievers by Sunni teachers. Judges often ban Shia witnesses during trials because of their faith and bar Shia from taking jobs in government ministries or the military. [8] In the weekly sermons in the mosques, Shiites are regularly denounced as heretics and infidels. [9]
At the time of the incident, the Syrian civil war spawned the creation of the Islamic State, which also gained prominence in Iraq before spreading to other places in the region. Saudi Arabia was also partaking in bombings during the Yemeni civil war. In November 2014, eight Shia worshippers were killed by gunmen during Ashura mourning at a shrine in the city of al-Ahsa. Jafar Al Shayeb, a member of the Qatif municipal council, says that sectarian tensions have already risen sharply as a result of the war Saudi Arabia's new King Salman is waging against the Houthis and that divisive rhetoric from Wahhabi preachers was increasing. He believes that the situation for Saudi Shia was about to get worse. [8]
Critics point out that the government has done nothing to address rising sectarian tensions in the country. The country is built on the Wahhabi creed of Islam, whose ideology shares many similarities with that of the Islamic State. Hours before the bombing, one imam in Riyadh was quoted as telling devout worshippers at the end of Friday prayers: "Allah, attack all the Shia everywhere; Allah, send them earthquakes; Allah, kill them all." [10]
In Saudi Arabia, several attacks against the Shia Muslim Minority were reported, however, the suicide explosion in the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque is one of the deadliest attacks. [5] Reportedly 150 people were present in the mosque for Friday prayers. The mosque suicide attack killed 23 people. [11] This kind of suicide attack has been seen many times in Pakistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries, but it is first time in the history of Saudi Arabia that such an attack occurred on a mosque during prayers. [12] [13] [14]
In an online statement, the Islamic State claimed responsibility, saying their soldiers were behind the attack at the Imam Ali Mosque and that one of their suicide bombers, identifying him as Abu Amer Al-Najdi, had detonated an explosive belt. [15] An Islamic State-affiliated Twitter account posted an image of a suicide bomber they say was involved in the attack. [16] Saudi authorities, however, identified Saudi national Salih bin Abdurrahman Salih Al Ghishaami as the suicide bomber. [17]
Doctor Fahd bin Saad al-Majed, General Secretary of the Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia has condemned the attack and clarified that aims of terrorists to harm the unity of the Saudi people and to destabilize the kingdom, could never be successful. [18] Saudi Arabia's top cleric, Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, has also condemned the attack and described the terrorist act as "a crime, shame and great sin". [19]
A statement from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and said "such attacks on places of worship are abhorrent and intended to promote sectarian conflict." [20]
Half a million people participated in funeral processions for victims of explosion in Ali Bin Abi Talib Mosque in Al-Qudaih town of Qatif governorate in the Saudi Eastern Province on Friday, the 22 May 2015. The victims were buried following funeral prayers held in the Qadeeh market square on 25 May. Black flags of mourning flew in the streets of Qatif, where police mounted checkpoints while volunteers in bright yellow and orange vests inspected vehicles. [24] [25] The procession stretched for over three miles from different settlements in the province to the burial site to show respect for the victims bombing which led to the killing of 21 worshipers, including two children. The huge rally comes despite warning by extremists that they may again launch an attack on Shia gatherings. Even women and children declared their willingness to attend in huge numbers, although they were warned to stay away from the main gathering of mourners. The bodies were carried on litters decked with flowers in a final procession towards the cemetery in Qudaih village. [26] [27]
According to Saudi Kingdom's official news agency a suicide bomber on Friday the 29 May 2015 has blown himself up in the parking lot of a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia's city of Dammam a coastal city about 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the Persian Gulf. [28] Reportedly four people have died after a suicide bomber targeted a Shia mosque Imam Hussain in Saudi Arabia's eastern province which is the second attack of its kind in a week, fuelling fears of an organised campaign by the Islamic State to foment sectarian tensions inside the conservative Sunni kingdom. The terrorist organization quickly claimed that the latest attack had been carried out by one of their "soldiers of the Caliphate" identifying the suicide bomber as Abu Jandal al-Jazrawi. [29]
Preliminary reporting revealed that the explosion was a result of car bomb blast, however, Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry later confirmed that the explosion happened when a person wearing female clothes blew himself up using an explosives belt at the mosque's gate as the security men were approaching him to check his identity. Interior Ministry spokesman also stated that those "martyred" in the attack were: [30]
The three injured victims were identified as (i) Ahmed Abdullah Al-Abdul Karim, (ii) Hassan Ali Al-Sagheerat, and (iii) Hassan Al-Nijaidi. [31]
The Saudi Arabian interior ministry also disclosed the identity of the attacker as 19-year-old Khalid Ayed Mohammed Wahhabi Shammari. [32]
According to Middle East Eye Net and Shia Post, a male attacker dressed in traditional female clothing as a cover-up, after finding the female entrance closed, had attempted to enter the mosque from male entrance. The attacker was challenged by a young Shia volunteer, Abed AlJalil Al-Arbash, at Masjid Imam Hussain who dared to Stop the Suicide Bomber at the Parking Lot Gate and foiled the suicide attack by sacrificing his own life. [33] [34] Per sources of KSN News (KSNW-TV) Abduljaleel's older brother, Muhammed Jumah Alarbash, has also died on Friday night from injuries he sustained in the terror attack on 29 May 2015. [35]
Terrorism in Saudi Arabia has mainly been attributed to Islamic extremists. Their targets included foreign civilians—Westerners affiliated with its oil-based economy—as well as Saudi Arabian civilians and security forces. Anti-Western attacks have occurred in Saudi Arabia dating back to 1995. Saudi Arabia itself has been accused of funding terrorism in other countries, including Syria.
The Imam Ali mosque bombing was the detonation of two car bombs outside the Shia Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf on 29 August 2003. The attack killed 95 people crowded around the mosque for Friday prayers, including Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, spiritual leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
After the death of Muhammad in 632, a group of Muslims, who would come to be known as the Sunnis, believed that Muhammad's successor as caliph of the Islamic community should be Abu Bakr, whereas a second group of Muslims, who would come to be known as the Shias, believed that his successor should have been Ali ibn Abi Talib. This dispute spread across various parts of the Muslim world, which eventually led to the Battle of Jamal and Battle of Siffin. Sectarianism based on this historic dispute intensified greatly after the Battle of Karbala, in which Husayn ibn Ali and some of his close partisans, including members and children of the household of prophet, were killed by the ruling Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, and the outcry for revenge divided the early Islamic community, albeit disproportionately, into two groups, the Sunni and the Shia. This is known today as the Islamic schism.
The Saudi government does not conduct a census on religion or ethnicity, but some sources estimate the Shia population in Saudi Arabia to make up around 20% of the approximately 34 million natives of Saudi Arabia.
The September 2010 Quetta bombing occurred on 3 September 2010 in Quetta, Pakistan. At least 73 people were killed and 206 injured when a bomb exploded in a Quds Day procession which Shias were carrying out to express solidarity with Palestinians.
Anti-Shi'ism is hatred of, prejudice against, discrimination against, persecution of, and violence against Shia Muslims because of their religious beliefs, traditions, and cultural heritage. The term was first used by Shia Rights Watch in 2011, but it has been used in informal research and written in scholarly articles for decades.
The following lists events that happened during 2015 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The 2015 Sana'a mosque bombings were four suicide attacks on 20 March 2015 in Sana'a, Yemen.
A suicide bombing took place on 26 June 2015 at a Shia mosque in Kuwait. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attack. Sabah al-Sabah, the Emir at the time, arrived at the location of the incident after a short period of time. Twenty-seven people were killed and 227 people were wounded.
The 2015 Abha mosque bombing occurred on 6 August 2015, when a suicide bomb attack killed 17 people at a mosque in the south-western Saudi Arabian city of Abha.
The response of Saudi Arabia to the Islamic State has taken many forms. For example, Saudi government agencies have worked with the United States since late 2014 to train and equip Syrian fighters hoping to engage with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants. The challenges of dealing with ISIL is complicated by the fact that around 2,500 militants originally from Saudi territory have left for Syria in order to join ISIL, the destabilization created by the Syrian Civil War having a big effect on the region.
Shia Muslims have been persecuted by the Islamic State, an Islamic extremist group, since 2014. Persecutions have taken place in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the world.
On 4 July 2016, four suicide bombs exploded in three locations in Saudi Arabia. One of these exploded in the parking lots of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, killing at least four people. The second and third suicide bombers targeted a Shia mosque in Qatif, but they failed to harm anyone but themselves. A fourth militant blew himself up after police tried to arrest him near the U.S. consulate in Jeddah. Two Saudi Arabian police officers were injured.
On 7 July 2016, at least 56 people were killed and 75 injured after a group of attackers stormed the Mausoleum of Sayid Mohammed bin Ali al-Hadi, a Shia holy site in Balad, Iraq. The attackers included suicide car bombers, suicide bombers on foot, and several gunmen. They attacked Shia pilgrims celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. There were three suicide bombers, and one of them was killed by security personnel. There were other attackers too. ISIL also launched several mortars into the area.
The 2017–2020 Qatif unrest was a phase of conflict in the Qatif region of Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, between Saudi security forces and the local Shia community, that arose sporadically starting in 1979, including a series of protests and repression during the 2011–12 Saudi Arabian protests.
On 8 October 2021, an ISIS-K suicide bombing occurred at the Shia Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz. Over 50 people were killed, and another 100 were injured, but according to an estimate by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, more than 100 people were killed and wounded.
On 15 October 2021, a suicide bombing occurred at the Imam Bargah Mosque, also known as Fatima Mosque, a Shia mosque during Friday prayers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing at least 65 people and wounding more than 70 others.
On 4 March 2022, the Islamic State – Khorasan Province attacked a Shia mosque at Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The suicide attack, carried out by an Afghan man who was a long-term resident of Pakistan, killed at least 63 people and injured another 196. The Islamist terror group Islamic State – Khorasan Province claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Islamic State – Saudi Arabia Province, referred to by the Islamic State as Wilayat al-Haramayn and self-described as Najd Province, is a branch of the militant Islamist group Islamic State (IS), active in Saudi Arabia. The group, formed on 13 November 2014, conducted a number of attacks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between November 2014 and March 2017. The group is generally considered less active than other established affiliates of the Islamic State, notably the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS–K).
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab ... insisted that invoking and making vows to holy men indeed constituted major idolatry and that it was proper to deem as infidels anyone who failed to view such practices as idolatry. ...He then stated that if one admits that these practices are major idolatry, then fighting is a duty as part of the prophetic mission to destroy idols. Thus, the idolater who calls upon a saint for help must repent, If he does so, his repentance is accepted. If not, he is to be killed.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)On May 22, a suicide bomber detonated himself, killing 21 people, at the Imam Ali mosque in the Persian Gulf-area village of Qudayh, in one of Saudi Arabia's few Shiite population centers in the majority Sunni kingdom.