Baku-APA. Saudi authorities blamed militants linked to Al-Qaeda, and a cabinet minister was sacked Wednesday, after an unprecedented attack that killed Shiite worshippers and highlighted sectarian tensions in the Sunni-dominated kingdom, APA reports quoting AFP.
The dismissal of Culture and Information Minister Abdlaziz Khoja follows Shiite calls for action against hate speech in the media.
Masked gunmen in the kingdom's east late on Monday killed at least six Shiites, including children, during the celebration of Ashura, one of the holiest occasions of their faith.
The attackers were "followers of the deviant ideology", interior ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki told Saudi media, using a term often employed by authorities to describe Al-Qaeda.
Activists in the Shiite-populated and oil-rich region gave AFP the names and ages of seven people they said had been gunned down in Al-Dalwa, a town of several thousand people.
Five of the victims were aged 18 or younger, including 15-year-old Mohammed Husain al-Basrawi, and the youngest to die, Mahdi Eid al-Musharef, aged nine.
The activists also named 12 people they said were wounded.
The interior ministry gave a different toll of six dead, up from five reported initially. Police said nine were wounded.
On Wednesday officials including the area's governor, Prince Badr bin Mohammad, visited those recovering from their injuries, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
Radical Sunni groups consider Shiites heretics and have targeted them in deadly attacks elsewhere in the region.
The Ashura commemorations mark the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, by the army of the Caliph Yazid in 680 AD -- an event that lies at the heart of Islam's sectarian divide into Shiite and Sunni sects.
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