| New York Times | - |
RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia - A suicide bomber killed at least 21 people during midday
prayers on Friday at a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia, local
news media reported, one of the first potential signs that the country's
intervention in the sectarian conflict ...
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A suicide bomber killed at least 21 people during midday prayers on Friday at a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia, local news media reported, one of the first potential signs that the country’s intervention in the sectarian conflict in Yemen is escalating tensions at home as well.
Members
of the Shiite minority, who make up about 15 percent of the population
and live mainly in the oil-rich Eastern Province, have long complained
of discrimination by Saudi Arabia’s Sunni majority and clerical
establishment.
During
Saudi Arabia’s two-month air campaign against the Houthi movement in
Yemen, which practices a form of Shiite Islam and receives backing from
Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran,
imams at Sunni mosques across the country have rallied the public
around the war, in part by repeatedly denouncing Shiites as dangerous
infidels.
The
Saudi Arabian news media has portrayed the Houthis as proxies of
Shiite-led Iran and characterized the Yemen campaign as a vital defense
against an Iranian incursion.
Map
U.S.-Supplied Cluster Bombs Used in Yemen
Annotated maps showing the Houthi rebels’ drive south, U.S. airstrikes and historical divisions.
At
the same time, Saudi Arabia’s participation in the American-led
military campaign in Iraq and Syria against the Sunni extremists of the
Islamic State has raised fears of a backlash from its sympathizers at
home. Thousands of Saudis have traveled to join the Islamic State, which
follows a puritanical school of Islam that scholars say is similar to
that of Saudi Arabia, although Saudi Arabia’s rulers and clerics dispute
that.
A
posting on Twitter on Friday that purported to come from a Yemeni arm
of the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but it did
not include details and its credibility was hard to assess.
Saudi
Interior Ministry officials said in interviews this week that they had
seen an increase in violence by Sunni extremists, including three
separate attacks near the capital, Riyadh, that killed a total of three
police officers and injured two others.
But
the last major episode of sectarian violence inside the kingdom came
six months ago, when a gunman killed eight people in the Shiite village
of Dalwa, in the Al Ahsa region of the Eastern Province, at the end of
the Shiite holiday of Ashura.
The
bombing on Friday took place in the town of Al Qudaih, near the
regional center Qatif, also in the Eastern Province. The Qatif area has
been the site of sectarian tensions in the aftermath of the Arab Spring
revolts four years ago, including sporadic, Shiite-dominated street
protests.
Saudi
Arabia, in response, has jailed at least two prominent Shiite clerics
who have called for political overhauls such as adopting a
constitutional monarchy. One firebrand cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, has
been sentenced to death for his role in leading street protests in
Qatif.
In
an apparent attempt to tamp down tensions after the attack on Friday,
state television broadcast a telephone call from Saudi Arabia’s senior
religious authority, the grand mufti, Abdulaziz al-Asheikh, who called
the attack a “painful” and “criminal” act against the “sons of the
homeland.”
But
on social media, some Saudis rushed to blame Iran for the bombing,
asserting that it might have been carried out to provoke Shiites in
Saudi Arabia to turn against the kingdom.
Jafar
al-Shayeb, head of the Qatif Municipal Council and a Shiite community
leader, blamed the “sectarian discourse” that has spread through Saudi
Arabia since the start of the air campaign in Yemen. “People feel like
this is a direct result of the atmosphere that is turning everybody
against each other through speeches and media and social media,” he
said. “It will lead young people to sacrifice themselves and kill others
in this region, and people are very angry about it.”
Frederic
Wehrey, an analyst who follows Saudi Arabia at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, argued that the tension might persist even
after the Yemen campaign. “Sectarianism, once you have unleashed it, you
can’t bottle back it up,” he said. “It afflicts people every day.”
Correction: May 22, 2015
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the number of people killed in an attack in the Shiite village of Dalwa six months ago. Although five were killed initially, three others later died of their wounds.
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the number of people killed in an attack in the Shiite village of Dalwa six months ago. Although five were killed initially, three others later died of their wounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment