Kuwait City mosque bombing kills 27

KUWAIT CITY, June 26 (UPI) -- Twenty-seven people were killed Friday as the crowded Imam Sadiq Mosque in Kuwait City was struck by a suicide bomber, officials said.

In addition to the 27 dead, Kuwaiti Health Minister Ali al-Obaidi told Kuwait News Agency 227 others were injured. About 2,000 people were in the mosque at the time of the incident. Kuwaiti parliament member Khalil Al Salih said prayers were in progress when a loud explosion tore through the building.

A group affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), the "Islamic State in the Province of Najd," a reference to central Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Shia mosque, near the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry, in al-Sawaber, a neighborhood in eastern Kuwait City. It identified the bomber as Abu Sulaiman Al Muwahhid, and referred to the mosque as the "temple of the rejectionists." Kuwait's rulers are Sunni Muslims, although the country has a large Shia majority regarded by IS as heretics.

Similar recent attacks, blamed on IS, have occurred in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Kuwait has been relatively free of terrorist incidents.

Guarded by heavy security, Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad, Emir of Kuwait, later visited the area of the blast, as the country declared a state of emergency.