A blast outside a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia killed at least three people Friday, one week after a similar and even more deadly attack in the Arab nation.
A Saudi source with detailed knowledge of the investigation said that a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the Imam Hussein mosque in Dammam, a coastal city about 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain, shortly after noon (5 a.m. ET) Friday.
The attacker — dressed in traditional female clothing as a cover-up — had been challenged by Shiites who had volunteered to search those going into the mosque in the wake of the previous week’s attack in the village of Qudayh, according to the source.
The bomber then set off explosives — killing himself and three Shiite worshipers, the source said.
The official Saudi Press Agency also reported four deaths, though Saudi authorities initially described the incident as a car fire and did not say an attack took place.
Friday’s carnage happened in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Anoud in Dammam, the capital of Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. It is one of the few Shiite population centers in a country in which 85% to 90% of citizens are Sunni, the other major Islamic sect.
The blast came a week after a suicide bomber attacked the Imam Ali mosque in Qudayh as Shiite worshipers were praying. The blast killed at least 21 people and injured scores more, Qatif Gov. Khalid bin Abdul Aziz Elsafaan said, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
ISIS later claimed responsibility, signaling the Sunni extremist terrorist’s reach into another country after its successes in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
It was not immediately clear who was behind Friday’s blast in Dammam.