Qatif: Tens of thousands of Saudi Shiites on Monday held a mass funeral for the victims of a mosque bombing which authorities called an attempt by Sunni extremists to sow sectarian strife.
Mourners from the kingdom`s minority community crowded streets in the mainly Shiite Qatif district of Eastern Province to show their respect for the 21 dead, who included two children.
A Shiite imam led the funeral prayer in a marketplace under a cloudless sky, as a breeze carried the fragrance of green herbs placed on prayer mats upon which the bodies lay.
Volunteers in flourescent orange vests carried the victims in, one by one, on wooden litters draped with flowers.
The crowd, some of them weeping, shouted the name of Imam Hussein, a revered figure in Shiite Islam.
Memorial banners and flags flew at the sprawling outdoor market where pictures of the dead were displayed. They included a boy wearing a bow tie, and a bearded man in uniform.
Everybody "is very much anxious to participate... to express their support," one organiser said ahead of the funeral, asking not to be named. Mourners were expected from Saudi Arabia and abroad, he said.
The suicide bombing, during the main weekly Muslim prayers in nearby Kudeih, was the second mass killing of Shiites in the kingdom since late last year.
In November, gunmen killed seven Shiites in the Eastern Province town of Al-Dalwa.
Asked whether he feared a new attack during the funeral, the organiser said: "Nobody can predict anything. We have taken all precautions in coordination with local authorities."
Volunteer marshals sealed off surrounding streets, frisked pedestrians entering the area, and photographed the identity cards of journalists.
Safety concerns prompted organisers to ask women to stay away from the funeral, but some went anyway. A small group of female mourners gathered near a pastel-green mosque in one corner of the market.Organisers also took precautions against the desert heat, setting up stands offering ice water and snacks.
Black flags of mourning flew in the streets of Qatif, while police manned checkpoints leading into the district.
"What happened, the unfortunate event, made us more united," said Ayman Alawi Abu Rahi, who is from Kudeih.
"We as a Shiite community, we are not afraid of explosions. We condemn the terrorists," but not Sunnis. "They pray in our mosques," he said.
Following prayers at the market, the crowd surged into a nearby street, filling it for as far as the eye could see, to make a 30-minute march to the burial site in Kudeih.
The Islamic State group said it carried out the bombing, the first time the jihadists, who control swathes of neighbouring Iraq and Syria, claimed an attack in the Sunni-dominated kingdom.
The interior ministry confirmed that the bomber, a Saudi national, had links with IS, which considers Shiites to be heretics.
It was the deadliest attack in years in Saudi Arabia. King Salman vowed on Sunday that anyone with the slightest involvement in the "heinous crime" would be punished.
Most Saudi Arabian Shiites live in the east, where the vast majority of the country`s oil reserves lie but where Shiites have long complained of marginalisation.
Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Gulf neighbours joined a US-led air campaign against IS in Syria last year, raising concerns about possible retaliation in the kingdom.
