In June, a suicide bomber killed 27 people when he blew himself up inside a packed Shi’ite Muslim mosque in Kuwait city during Friday prayers.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in the district of Sawaber in the eastern part of the Kuwaiti capital and also wounded 227 people.
Kuwaiti member of parliament, Khalil al-Salih, who was at the mosque when the attack occurred, said worshippers were kneeling in prayer when the bomber walked into the Imam al-Sadeq Mosque and detonated his explosives, destroying walls and the ceiling. He said the suicide bomber was in his twenties. It was the first suicide bombing at a Shi’ite mosque in Kuwait.
Shi’ites comprise approximately 25 percent of the population in the predominantly Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab state, where members of both communities are known to live side by side with little friction.
In Syria, during the first year of its self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate, ISIS executed over 3,027 people, including at least 86 women and 76 children, according to reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. This includes people executed for “crimes” including blasphemy, spying, practising sorcery, sodomy, or identifying themselves as a Shiite Muslim. The methods of execution include beheading, stoning, burning alive, drowning in cages and throwing victims off tall buildings. Two young men were reportedly crucified during Ramadan for failing to fast. They were apparently caught eating.
