For two Fridays in a row, Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province have been targeted by suicide bombers who are claimed by ISIL as its “soldiers of the caliphate”. The latest attack, on Al Anood mosque in a busy neighbourhood of Dammam, left four dead. But the first bomb blast, on May 22, at the Imam Ali mosque in the village of Al Qudeeh, was more devastating in terms of its physical and psychological toll. Twenty-one people were killed and Saudi Arabia was left with the certain knowledge that it had a long hard fight on its hands against ISIL, which is intent on inflaming sectarian tensions. It was significant that not long after the blast in Al Qudeeh, there was a second explosion at a Shiite mosque in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. This too was claimed by ISIL.
There can be little doubt of the agenda of ISIL, or the lone wolves, freelancers and free-form groups that have begun using its name or materialised as affiliates within the past eight months in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Afghanistan, among other countries.
The attacks on Shiite mosques are intended to heighten sectarian differences, the same tactic that the extremist group has used in Iraq and elsewhere. They come at a particularly sensitive time, after weeks of Saudi-led air strikes on Shiite Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen. Friday prayer times are chosen because a crowd of worshippers is guaranteed to be a suitably soft target. And, as seen in the latest attack in Damman, ISIL’s footsoldiers will do whatever it takes to execute their dastardly agenda, including disguising themselves as women. As Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, has said, such acts “target the unity of the national fabric of the kingdom”.
There is every sign that it will not fray and ISIL’s plans will fail. After Friday’s attack, Saudi Arabia’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Abdel Aziz Al Sheikh lambasted the attackers as “a stray group with no religion”. King Salman vowed to punish those responsible. And the authorities swiftly put in place well-judged security measures, such as closing off women’s prayer areas and forming committees to search worshippers.
It was these measures that helped reduce the Damman death toll – together with the earlier intervention of two security guards who pushed the attacker away from the main gates of the mosque – which only goes to show that common sense and community spirit are sound weapons in the fight against evil.