Saudi Arabia: Egyptian among al-Ahsa mosque bombers

Saudi Arabian authorities have identified an Egyptian national as the second attacker involved in a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque during last week’s Friday prayers.

Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Mansour al-Turki said in a statement on Monday obtained by the Associated Press that the attacker, Talha Hesham Abdo, had lived in the kingdom on a visitor visa since 2013.

Abdo and a Saudi national, identified a day earlier as 22-year-old Abdulrahman al-Tuwaijri, were both wearing explosive belts. Abdo was wounded and detained after an exchange of gunfire with security forces outside the mosque.

Al-Tuwaijri died when he detonated his device at the entrance of Imam Reda Mosque in al-Ahsa, killing four people and wounding 33 others.

No group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, but Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters have targeted the kingdom’s minority Shia in the past.

In late October, ISIL claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Najran city, in which one person was killed and 16 others were injured.

ISIL also claimed responsibility for an attack at a mosque inside a special forces headquarters in the city of Abha in early August. Fifteen people were killed and nine wounded in that attack.