Kuwait Shiite Mosque Attack: Islamic State Claims Ramadan Suicide Blast, At Least 15 Dead

The Islamic State group has claimed credit for a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in Kuwait’s capital Friday that left at least 15 people dead. A post on a Twitter account belonging to the group, also known as ISIS, said the attack on the Imam Sadiq Mosque  in Kuwait City had been carried out by an ISIS affiliate called the Najd Province, the same group that claimed it carried out two recent attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia, the Associated Press reported.

The attackers struck after Friday prayers during the holy month of Ramadan, when attendance typically increases at mosques. One witness told the AP that the roughly 2,000 worshippers were participating in a group prayer when the explosion struck near the door of the mosque.

 ISIS regards Shiites as heretics. A Twitter statement by the group after the attack said the bomber had targeted a “temple of apostates.”
Medics at the scene had earlier said that the bombing killed at least 13 people, while 25 others were hospitalized, Agence France-Presse reported.

A Kuwaiti parliament member told Reuters that worshippers were kneeling in prayer when the suicide bomber entered from the side of the mosque and blew himself up, destroying walls and the ceiling. "It was obvious from the suicide bomber's body that he was young. He walked into the prayer hall during sujood [kneeling in prayer], he looked ...in his 20s, I saw him with my own eyes," Khalil al-Salih told the news agency.