Rhino: Agencies – Omani police said on Thursday that the three perpetrators involved in the shooting and killing of six people at a Shiite Mosque in the Sultanate are Omanis.
The attack took place at the Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in the Al-Wadi Al-Kabeer area near the capital Muscat. The attack was claimed by the militant Islamic State group.
The Royal Oman Police said the perpetrators were ‘brothers who died as a result of their insistence on resisting the security personnel, and investigations and inquiries indicated that they were influenced by misguided ideas’.
Four Pakistanis, an Indian national and a policeman who was dealing with the attackers were killed in the attack
Pakistan described the attack as a terrorist attack.
The Islamic State (IS) said on Tuesday that three of its ‘suicide bombers’ opened fire on worshippers at the mosque on Monday evening and exchanged fire with Omani security forces until morning.
The militant group also posted a video on its Telegram channel of the three attackers.
The clip showed the faces of the three gunmen and was reportedly recorded before the attack, with one of them saying that ‘the soldiers of the Islamic State will have an appointment with the temple of the rejectionists in Muscat’.
The group, which operates in Afghanistan, has this year claimed responsibility for major attacks in Russia and Iran that have resulted in heavy casualties.
It had not claimed responsibility for attacks in the Arabian Peninsula for several years until the Oman attack.