DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Several gunmen burst into a Shiite mosque in the Gulf Arab state of Oman and opened fire, killing six people and wounding nearly 30 more, authorities said Tuesday, stunning the peaceful sultanate and making it the deadliest attack there in recent memory.
The Islamic State extremist group, through an affiliated news agency, claimed responsibility for the attack in the capital, Muscat, without providing evidence. It marked the first time that the Sunni Muslim extremist group, which considers Shiites to be heretics, has asserted responsibility for an attack in Oman.
There is no known branch of the Islamic State in Oman, a country that tends to stay out of the sectarian disputes roiling the wider region. But Islamic extremists, including a local branch of al-Qaida, have long staged attacks in neighboring Yemen, exploiting the chaos of that country's war for much of the past decade.
The Royal Oman Police said the rare shooting killed five worshippers in the mosque in Muscat's Wadi Kabir neighborhood and one police officer. Omani authorities did not specify the number of gunmen but said security forces had killed three attackers.
At least 28 people were wounded in the shooting, Omani police added, among them officers and medics.
Pakistan identified four of the dead as its citizens. Nearly 2 million migrants, mostly from South Asia, help power Oman's economy by filling low-skilled jobs in construction and other fields.
The U.S. Embassy in Muscat issued a security alert warning citizens to “stay vigilant.”
Like other sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf, Oman retains tight controls on traditional media and its state news agency offered scant information Tuesday about what happened.
Through its official Amaq news agency, the Islamic State movement said it targeted worshippers who holding special prayers on the eve of the Shiite mourning festival of Ashoura, which marks the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Hussein, at Karbala in modern-day Iraq.
Statements of condolence and outrage came from around the region, where Oman plays a sensitive role. The sultanate maintains friendly relations both with Saudi Arabia, the heartland of traditionalist Sunni Islam, and its rival, the Shiite power Iran. Unlike in other countries in the Mideast, the majority of Omani citizens are Ibadi Muslims — a more liberal offshoot of Islam predating the Sunni-Shiite split.
Many of Oman's migrant workers hail from Pakistan, where the Islamic State’s regional affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan, has claimed a series of deadly suicide bombings and other attacks targeting Shiite mosques in recent years.
“Pakistan stands in solidarity with the Sultanate of Oman and offers full assistance in the investigation,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on the social media platform X, saying he was "deeply saddened" by the shooting.
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