Terrorism struck in eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday when one policeman was killed and six of his comrades were injured in a terrorist attack, according to a statement by the Saudi Ministry of Interior issued to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). “At 8:30am on Sunday, a police patrol unit was targeted in a terrorist attack using an explosive device while on duty in the Masoura district of the Qatif province,” it said. The attack “resulted in the death of Mahdi bin Said bin Dhafer Al-Yami and the injury of six security personnel who were taken to hospital and are in a stable condition.” Investigations into the attack are continuing without any group claiming responsibility. The Saudi government has also not accused any specific group. Several attacks have previously occurred in the eastern region of the country, home to most of Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority, killing and injuring a number of security personnel. Five attacks have taken place this year alone in Saudi Arabia's eastern region, killing at least three police officers, one child, two Saudis and one Pakistani national. Several other Saudi civilians and security personnel and non-Saudis have also been injured. The Saudi government has accused the Islamic State (IS) group or a group called Saudi Hizbullah for the terrorist attacks in the east of the country. But Saudi Arabia has been the target of terrorist attacks for some time, including in Riyadh, Mecca and Medina, killing or maiming several people. Since 2015, there have been more than 15 attacks in which dozens have died or been injured. The eastern provinces of Qatif, Al-Ahsaa and Al-Awayma have seen numerous attacks. Masoura in Al-Awamya is an old district that was built some 400 years ago, and it is where most of the attacks have targeted the police. In response, the government has begun to rehabilitate the district since “terrorists have taken advantage of its complex grid of alleyways” to carry out attacks. However, the project has not been progressing smoothly, and there have been complaints by some opponents accusing the government of targeting Shiites, which Riyadh denies. Nabih Al-Brahim from Al-Awamya, a former member of the local council and a consultant engineer of the rehabilitation project, said such claims were untrue. “These projects are taking place everywhere in the kingdom, including in Mecca, Medina and around the royal palace in Riyadh. There is no hint of sectarianism” in carrying them out in Al-Awamya, he said. Protests took place in Al-Awamya at the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011, and some believe they were linked to events in neighbouring Bahrain which has a Shiite majority. More recently on 21 July this year, the government announced that three suspects (two Saudis and one Bahraini) had been killed. According to Al-Brahim, a group of criminals had taken advantage of the district's abandoned buildings, converting them into crime headquarters. Al-Masoura had become a maze that only locals know their way around, he said, with the Saudi Ministry of the Interior saying that the majority of attacks against the police “begin and end” in Al-Masoura. Al-Brahim said that rehabilitating the district had begun ten years ago, and the goal was not to tear it down but improve it by constructing wider roads, parking areas and other services in order to upgrade failing infrastructure. “But because of the misuse of conditions in the district, the plan changed for security reasons, and the government was forced to demolish the entire district after taking possession of private property and generously compensating its owners. All this improves their living standards and transforms the area into a modern one with proper services,” he explained. Meanwhile, Riyadh is trying to calm the domestic and regional scene by forging alliances with Shiite forces similar to the ones in Yemen, according to sources in the Yemeni cities of Aden and Sanaa. Yemeni Websites have reported on talks with the leaders of the General People's Congress Party led by ousted former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to undercut the Iranian influence represented by the Houthi rebels of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood represented by the country's Reform Party in this unstable country that is facing famine and an outbreak of cholera. The Russia Today news Website has reported that Saudi security and political officials met with their Syrian counterparts in order to ease tensions with Damascus “and draw it away from Tehran”. Abdel-Wahab Al-Rouhani, a political science professor at Sanaa University in Yemen, said these steps by Saudi Arabia were positive since they would not only benefit Saudi Arabia but also the entire region. “Riyadh will certainly benefit because the steps will greatly undermine Iran's influence in Yemen, Syria and Iraq,” Al-Rouhani said. “They will also ease tensions in all these countries.” “These reconciliation steps will result in new domestic alliances in unstable countries and will convince many Shiites in the Gulf to be more rational in their political moves. They also prevent Tehran from using the minorities there for its own ends,” he said.
