Mosque bombing kills 15 in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA— An alleged new affiliate of the Islamic State group in Saudi Arabia has claimed responsibility for an attack that targeted a mosque used by police special forces in the kingdom’s southwest on Thursday, killing 15 people.

It was one of the deadliest attacks in years against Saudi security forces that battled a wave of Al Qaeda attacks about a decade ago and which have come under sporadic attacks in recent weeks in the capital, Riyadh, by militants purportedly linked to the Islamic State group.

The claim by the so-called Hijaz Province of the Islamic State appeared hours after the attack in the city of Abha, close to Saudi Arabia’s southern border with war-torn Yemen. It was carried on Islamic Stateaffiliated Twitter accounts and was also reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks militant messages. It was the first claim by the purportedly new branch, which has not been heard of previously. The “Hijaz” in its name is a reference to the historic western part of Saudi Arabia that is home to Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina.

Previous attacks in the kingdom by Islamic State militants have been claimed by a group calling itself Najd Province, a reference to Saudi Arabia’s central region, where Riyadh is.

The interior ministry said that an initial investigation indicated the suicide bomber wore an explosive belt and struck a mosque inside an interior ministry compound in Abha as members of the special forces and trainees were in the middle of afternoon prayers. The ministry’s spokesman, Maj.-Gen. Mansour al-Turki, said that it was too early to confirm whether Islamic State was behind the attack and that the police were still investigating.