DUBAI:
The Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group, claimed responsibility on Tuesday for an attack on a Shiite mosque in Oman that left at least nine dead, including three attackers, a rare security breach in the oil-producing Gulf state.
Four Pakistanis, an Indian and a policeman were among those killed in the gun attack, according to Pakistani, Indian and Omani officials. Omani police said 28 people of various nationalities were injured, including security personnel.
The attack began Monday night at the Ali bin Abi Talib mosque in the Wadi al-Kabir district of the Omani capital Muscat, authorities said, 500 meters from an international school and an adjacent skateboard park and less than 10 kilometers from a row of five star beach resorts.
Such violence is exceptional in the wealthy, Sunni-dominated Muslim Gulf states — usually safe and stable — raising fears that Islamic State, which has been operating in the shadows since being largely crushed by the US-led coalition in 2017, it may be attempting a return to new territory.
Islamic State said in a statement late Tuesday that three of its “suicide attackers” opened fire on worshipers at the mosque on Monday night and exchanged fire with Omani security forces until the morning.
The group also posted what it said was a video of the attack on its Telegram website.
Another video shared on social media and verified by Reuters shows people running from the mosque as gunfire rang out.
Police have not said whether they have identified a motive for the attack or whether they have made any arrests. Omani authorities have also not revealed the identity of the attackers.
A local source said the mosque was also known as the Imam Ali Mosque and is a Shiite place of worship in Ibadi-run Oman, which has a small but powerful Shiite minority.
Describing the incident as a “terrorist” attack, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said 30 survivors were being treated in hospitals.
Unprecedented
Islamic State said its fighters attacked a gathering of Shia Muslims “practicing their annual rituals”.
Monday afternoon marked the start of Ashura, an annual period of mourning that many Shiite Muslims mark publicly to commemorate the 7th-century death of Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad. The observance of Ashura has sometimes sparked religious tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in some Middle Eastern countries, though not usually in Oman where the Ibadi sect promotes tolerance.
Most Omanis adhere to Sunni Islam or the Ibadi faith, which is a branch of Islam that has much in common with mainstream Sunni Islam.
“This is a very unprecedented event…the likes of which we have not seen in the history of Oman,” Pakistan’s ambassador to Muscat, Imran Ali, said after visiting some victims in hospital.
He said most of the 30 victims there were being treated for gunshot wounds, while others had been injured fleeing the attack, including being crushed in the stampede.
In March, the Islamic State group said it was behind an attack that killed more than 140 people at a concert hall near Moscow, and in January claimed responsibility for two explosions in Iran that killed nearly 100.
Such high-profile attacks have fueled fears of a comeback by a clandestinely-led group whose fighters are believed to be scattered in autonomous cells.
At the height of its power in the early 2010s, Islamic State declared a “caliphate” across a wide swath of Syria and Iraq, inflicting death and torture on critics and inspiring attacks in dozens of cities around the world.
The group’s control collapsed after a sustained military campaign by a US-led coalition.
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