A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people and wounded 202 at a Kuwait mosque Friday, al Arabiya reports. An Islamic State statement posted on social media claims responsibility.
The bombing occurred in the packed Imam Sadiq mosque, which held over 2,000 congregants during weekly noon prayers, witnesses told al Arabiya.
Bloodied people poured onto Kuwait City’s streets from the smoke-filled mosque after the attack, photos posted to Twitter show.
Paramedic Abdelrahman al-Yusef, a Kuwaiti human rights activist, told Reuters that medics have treated at least 179 people. At least 16 people were killed, he said, mostly men or boys who were praying at the mosque when the attack occurred.
The Islamic State statement said the Shiite Muslim mosque target was “a temple of the rejectionists” and identified the bomber as Abu Suleiman al-Muwahed, according to al Arabiya.
It is the first Kuwait bombing to target the country’s minority Shiites, who make up about one-third of the country’s population of 1.3 million.
Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Hamad al-Sabah told Reuters that Friday’s suicide bombing is an attempt to threaten the country’s national unity.
“This incident targets our internal front, our national unity,” Jaber told Reuters after visiting the wounded at the Emiri hospital. “But this is too difficult for them and we are much stronger than that.”
The attack occurred on a Friday, which is typically the most crowded day of the week for a mosque, and also during the Muslim holy period of Ramadan.
Friday’s attack in Kuwait comes in the wake of several devastating terrorist attacks Friday: the slaughter of 146 in Kobani, Syria; the finding of an Islamic State flag planted on a beheaded man’s body in France, and at least 27 tourists killed by two terrorist gun men at a beach in Tunisia.
