Hizbullah Holds Riyadh Responsible for Qatif Shiite Mosque Blast

Hizbullah on Friday held Saudi authorities “responsible” for a deadly suicide bombing that rocked a Shiite mosque in the kingdom's east, accusing Riyadh of “negligence” and “incitement.”

“We hold Saudi authorities fully responsible for this heinous crime, due to its sponsorship, embracement and support for the criminal murderers at the ideological, journalistic, political, material and operational levels … and due to its negligence in providing protection to its citizens who live in the Eastern Province and its incitement against them,” Hizbullah's media department said in a statement.

It accused the kingdom of practicing “the ugliest forms of sectarian and racist incitement” against the Shiites of the Eastern Province.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack later on Friday.

Extending condolences to the families of the victims, Hizbullah stressed that “God willing, the patient and faithful ones will triumph over the tyrants and their demonic tools.”

“The followers of the evil, takfiri and terrorist ideology do not differentiate between Shiites and Sunnis or Muslims and non-Muslims when they carry out their bombings.

“They practice their brutality against everyone, relying on a malicious school of thought that considers everyone else a blasphemer,” Hizbullah noted.

A war of words has recently escalated between the Shiite Lebanese party and majority-Sunni Saudi Arabia over the kingdom's military intervention in Yemen.

Nineteen people were killed in Friday's bombing and around 100 others wounded, according to Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television.

Shiite activists and witnesses gave conflicting tolls, with one saying four worshipers were killed and others speaking of 22 dead.

News websites in eastern Saudi Arabia posted photographs of bodies lying in pools of blood.

Qudaih is in the oil-rich Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabia's minority Shiite community which has long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Saudi police have made a string of arrests in recent months of Sunni extremists suspected of plotting attacks aimed at stirring sectarian unrest in the Eastern Province.

Last November, gunmen killed seven Shiites, including children, in the eastern town of al-Dalwa during the commemoration of Ashura, one of the holiest occasions of their faith.

Y.R.