RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Two gunmen wearing suicide bomb belts attacked a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia during Friday prayers, killing at least two people and wounding seven, authorities said.
The attack struck the Imam Reza Mosque in the neighborhood of Mehasin, an area popular with Shiite workers of the state-run Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest oil-producing firm.
One attacker detonated his explosives, while the other opened fire, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The other attacker was stopped from blowing himself up, it said.
The Interior Ministry said the attack killed two. Security officials said three were killed.
In the attack’s chaotic aftermath, Saudi police fired assault rifles into the air to drive away an angry mob that surrounded a police car holding a suspected attacker, according to video shot from the scene.
Shiites in Saudi Arabia make up some 10 to 15 percent of the ultra-conservative, Sunni-ruled kingdom’s population.
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