Increased attacks during Ramadan
Friday morning’s deadly attack on a Shiite Mosque in Kuwait is the sixth ISIL strike against a Muslim holy site in just five weeks. More than a hundred people have been killed and dozens more injured in those recent attacks, which took place in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria and, most recently, Iraq.
Experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) predicted such strikes on mosques leading up to Ramadan, and expect they will continue until the end of the Muslim holiday on July 17 — an effort by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to incite sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shiite groups.
The beginning of Ramadan marked one year since the ISIL’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, took Mosul and declared a Muslim caliphate spanning much of Syria and Iraq.
“It is possible that ISIS will mark its first anniversary as a caliphate by sowing seeds for regional disorder, marked with spectacular and surprise attacks upon targets that have hitherto been assessed by ISW to be outside the realm of likely action by ISIS,” ISW states in a report published on June 7.
The bombing in Kuwait, which killed at least 27 people, was the first terrorist attack in the city in over two decades. Historically, Sunni and Shiite Muslims have maintained peaceful relations in the city.
ISW points to the 2006 al-Qaida attacks against a mosque in Samarra, a city 125 kilometres north of Baghdad, which spurred intense sectarian conflict in the area may have set “a precedent that ISIS likely desires to repeat.”
An ISIL affiliate that calls itself Najd Province said it was behind Friday’s bombing in Kuwait City. It’s the third attack the previously unknown group has claimed responsibility for, including two attacks in Saudi Arabia in late May.
On May 22, a suicide bomber unleashed a blast in a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia as worshippers commemorated the birth of a revered saint, killing 21 people and wounding dozens more. The attack happened in the eastern Qatif region, the heartland of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite Muslim minority. It was the deadliest militant assault in the kingdom in more than a decade.
ISIL views Shiites as apostates deserving of death and also seeks the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy, which it considers corrupt and illegitimate. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has repeatedly called for attacks on the Saudi kingdom. Following the attack, ISIL warned of more “black days” for Shiites in Saudi Arabia, a member of the U.S.-led coalition targeting the group.
A week after the first Saudi attack, a suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up in the parking lot of the only Shiite mosque in the Saudi port city of Dammam, killing four people. The death toll at the Imam Hussein mosque could have been higher had authorities and worshippers not been on alert for attacks. One witness said the bomber was chased from the entrance by young men who had set up checkpoints.