At least 16 were killed and 179 others were wounded, while several are still missing, after a suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque in the Kuwaiti capital, the Associated Press reported.
The bombing occurred during the main weekly prayers on Friday at the Al-Imam al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait City. According to witnesses, a suicide bomber entered the mosque during the weekly noon prayers when the area is packed with people, especially during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which started last week.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, as stated on a social media account that is believed to be owned by the jihadist group. An affiliate of the Islamic State, the Najd Province, identified the bomber as Abu Suleiman al Muwahed, targeting the "temple of the rejectionists", which is how the militant group refer to Shia Muslims, The Express Tribune reported.
Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said the bombing was an attempt to threaten national unity, according to The Telegraph. Such attacks are rare in the country, and this is the first to have been claimed by the Islamic State targeting Kuwaiti Shias, who make up around one-third of the country's native population of 1.3 million people.
However, this isn't the first time ISIS attacked a Shiite mosque, as the incident follows the two different bombings on Saudi Arabia Shiite mosques in recent weeks, which Najd Province also claimed responsible of.
The incident comes amid deadly terror attacks in Tunisia, where 27 people where gunned down, and in France, where a man was decapitated at a factory.
