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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia's minority Shiite Muslims have staged protests in an eastern city, and four were shot dead, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.
The ministry statement did not say who fired the fatal shots in the city of Qatif, but a top official said security forces were fighting with demonstrators there.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki later told a news conference in Riyadh that authorities had to deal firmly with what he described as "rioters and hired elements" to restore security.
He said the "escalation of rioting" was systematic. Along with the four dead, he said nine were injured, including a woman.
The statement said two were killed Thursday during the funeral of one who had died earlier. Circumstances of the death of the fourth were not disclosed.
There has been a series of clashes between police and protesters in the country's Shiite-dominated eastern region, starting in the spring.
Though limited, protests in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia have been swiftly quelled. The monarchy apparently fears they could escalate as have others around the Arab world particularly in the neighboring island of Bahrain, where a Shiite majority is ruled by a Sunni king.
The Interior Ministry previously blamed what it described as "seditious" residents, saying they attacked security forces with guns and firebombs with the backing of a foreign enemy an apparent reference to Shiite power Iran.
The ministry statement Thursday said the deaths in the new unrest were the result of exchanges of fire since Monday with "unknown criminals," who it said fired on security checkpoints and vehicles from houses and alleyways.
"There was an escalation in the limited rioting. This escalation reached the level of threatening the lives of citizen and national security," Al-Turki told reporters.
He said investigation into who was behind the violence was under way.
Shiite religious holidays such as the mourning period known as Ashoura are targeted every year by Sunni extremists and have become especially difficult tests for the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, still struggling to protect their citizens. The U.S. military is rapidly shipping troops and equipment out of the country before a Dec. 31 deadline to have all its forces out -- then the entire responsibility for the nation's security will rest with Iraq's leaders.
Further underscoring the shortfalls, assailants just a week ago were able to even get a car bomb into the heavily fortified Green Zone that is the government's headquarters in the capital and is home to many foreign embassies, prompting the U.S. mission to severely limit the movement of its staff inside the zone. Iraqi officials say the bomb was meant for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but he was not in the area at the time. On Ashoura, the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who walk to the southern holy city of Karbala from around the country in a show of religious Shiite fervor present a particularly easy target for Sunni militants who do not consider Shiites to be true Muslims.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003, Shiites regained the right to express their beliefs freely, and since then the annual commemorations have drawn huge crowds despite the threat. In Monday's first attack, a bomb exploded among Shiite pilgrims in Latifiyah, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the capital, killing two of them and wounding three others, police said. A medical official confirmed the casualty toll.
Hours later, a car bomb exploded near a group of Shiite pilgrims in the town of Mahaweel as they were heading to Karbala, killing eight people and wounding about 56 other pilgrims, said police officials in Babil province. Mahaweel is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Baghdad. Three more attacks against Shiite pilgrims in the capital killed 11 people and wounded 41 others, police said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the are not authorized to talk to the media.
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The body of a woman, clutching a dead child in each arm, was sprawled along a dirt road littered with shoes, bloodstained clothing, hats and body parts after the blast, which took place as a bombing that killed four Shiites in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. A loudspeaker at the shrine blasted a recitation of the Quran as ambulances with loud sirens rushed in to carry away the dead and wounded. Outside a hospital in Kabul, a man sobbing with other relatives cried out "Mother! My mother!"
The Taliban condemned the attack, which was reminiscent of the wave of sectarian bloodshed that shook Iraq during the height of the war there. Suspicion centered on militant groups based in neighboring Pakistan where Sunni attacks on minority Shiites are common. A man who claimed to be from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Pakistan-based group that has carried out attacks against Shiite Muslims, called various media outlets in Pakistan to claim responsibility for the bombing in Kabul. The validity of the claim could not be determined.
Until now, the decade-long Afghan war has largely been spared sectarian violence, where civilians are targeted simply for their membership in a particular religious group. Tuesday's attack suggests that at least some militant groups may have shifted tactics, taking aim at ethnic minorities such as the Hazara who are largely Shiite and support the Afghan government and its Western partners.
More Carnage in Kabul sparks fear of sectarian strife - Yahoo! News
