CAIRO — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia, warning that more “black days” loom ahead in a direct challenge to the rulers of the Sunni kingdom.

Friday’s attack was the kingdom’s deadliest militant assault since a 2004 al-Qaida attack on foreign worker compounds, which sparked a massive Saudi security force crackdown. However, this Islamic State attack in the village of al-Qudeeh in the eastern Qatif region targeted Shiites, whom ultraconservatives in Saudi Arabia regularly denounce as heretics.

The statement on the Islamic State group’s al-Bayan radio station, read aloud Friday night and posted Saturday morning to militant websites associated with the extremists, identified the suicide bomber as a Saudi citizen with the nom de guerre Abu Amer al-Najdi. The station also identified the attack as being carried out by a new Islamic State branch in “Najd Province,” referring to the historic region of the central Arabian Peninsula home to the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The mosque attack killed at least 21 people and wounded 81, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The direct acknowledgment on official Islamic State group media strengthens the likelihood that the militant group has established a formal foothold inside the Kingdom. It remains unproven whether the perpetrators of the mosque bombing can successfully carry out multiple operations, as the Islamic State affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has done, or actually hold and control territory as the IS affiliate in Libya has done.

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