IS group claims deadly Saudi mosque bombing

The militant Islamist group said in an online claim that one of its members had detonated an explosive vest while inside the mosque.

In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, an interior ministry spokesman identified three of those killed as "workers".

The mosque, which is located in the southern province of Asir, is used by members of a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) domestic security unit.

"The terrorist attack struck worshippers during prayer. Ten policemen and three workers were killed while nine were wounded, three seriously," the spokesman said.

State television El-Ikhbariya, which broke the news earlier, gave a death toll of 17.

Thursday's bombing was the most serious in recent months against Saudi security forces, who have been targeted in attacks blamed on the IS group.

In mid-July, a car bomb exploded at a security checkpoint near a prison in the capital Riyadh. It killed the 19-year-old driver and wounded two policemen, the interior ministry said.

In the southwestern city of Taif on July 3, a policeman was gunned down during a raid in which three people were arrested and flags of the IS group found, police said earlier.

On successive Fridays in May suicide bombings at mosques of the minority Shiite community in Eastern Province killed a total of 25 people.

An IS-affiliated group calling itself Najd Province – which takes its name from the region around Riyadh – claimed those attacks as well as another suicide bombing that killed 26 people at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait in June.

The IS group, which is Sunni-based, considers Shiites to be heretics.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)