Saudi forces kill gunman who opened fire on Shia site

SAIHAT (Web Desk) – A man and a woman were killed after a gunman opened fire on a Shiite Muslim meeting hall on Friday in the Eastern city of Saihat, Al Arabiya News Channel correspondent reported.

Earlier, the Saudi-owned television channel Al Ekhbariya TV quoted sources as saying that “a person who opened fire on a husseiniya was killed, and the attacker was in his twenties.”

Saudi security forces shot dead a gunman who opened fire on a Shi’ite Muslim meeting hall on Friday in the Eastern city of Saihat, state-owned TV and a resident said.

Saudi-owned television channel Al Ekhbariya TV quoted sources as saying that: “A person who opened fire on a husseiniya was killed, and the attacker was in his twenties,”

The channel said that the motive remained unclear.

Meanwhile, a resident told that an attacker approached the meeting hall in a taxi but was stopped at a checkpoint. Police arrived and a gun battle broke out, which the resident said injured several people and left the attacker dead.

Some people were left wounded after fire shots targeted goes of a Shiite mosque in the eastern Saudi city of Saihat, Al Arabiya News Channel reported Friday.

This is not the first time a Shiite mosque was targeted in the kingdom.

In May, a suicide bomber blew himself up during Friday prayers at a mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh in eastern Saudi Arabia, killing at least 21 and wounding 81 others.  The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group later claimed the deadly attack.

In July, Saudi Arabia arrested 431 people as part of a crackdown on a cluster of cells linked to ISIS.  ISIS targets Shiites to stir sectarian strife in the country.