Baku-APA. Saudi Arabia on Tuesday arrested a cell of nine people in connection with a deadly shooting on Monday, in which five people were killed and nine others injured, APA reports quoting Al- Arabiya news.
The head of the arrestees, all Saudis, sneaked to the country from the conflict zone in Syria and Iraqwhere he illegally entered to fight with extremists, the report quoted sources as saying.
Earlier report said six men were arrested in the case.
On Monday, a shooting occurred in Al-Ahsa Governorate in the Eastern Province, one of the main centers of the Shiite Muslims minority in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, where the Shiite Muslims were in ceremony to mark their Ashoura, the holy day commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Prophet Mohammad who is revered by the Shiites.
The shooters arrived in a car and started to fire at a group of people at the scene, a spokesperson of Eastern Province Police told the local Sabaq e-newspaper.
All the victims are Shiites Muslims, however, several Saudi Shiite figures confirmed to Al-Arabiya that the attack did not target Shiites in particular, but to promote sectarian tensions in the country.
An Interior Ministry spokesperson referred to the case as a terrorist attack and likened it to other terrorism incidents in Riyadh, Ahsa and Eastern Region, while the Al-Arabiy said the number of arrestees is expected to increase.
Al-Ahsa has been one of the centers of anti-government protests in support of Shiites. The Shiite minority has been complaining about discrimination in educational opportunities and government employment in the majority Sunni state, as well as the restrictions on their religious practices. The Saudi government, however, denies such allegations.
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