Four killed in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province mosque attack

Dubai: A suicide bombing and gun attack on worshippers killed at least four people in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on Friday, the interior ministry and witnesses said, extending a spate of attacks in the kingdom.
The assault on the Imam Rida mosque in the Eastern Province town of Mahasen, in which there is an extension of a compound where state oil company Aramco employees live, also wounded at least 18 people.
There was no early claim of responsibility but it resembled previous attacks by militants from IS.
The Saudi interior ministry said security forces prevented two suicide bombers from entering the mosque, where one blew himself up, killing four people. Security forces exchanged fire with the second man and arrested him.
Witnesses said one suicide bomber blew himself up outside the mosque, causing a power blackout inside. They said worshippers overpowered a second attacker after he opened fire in the mosque where 200 people were performing Friday prayers.
"The explosion happened outside the mosque, at the courtyard of the mosque, while another one entered with a machinegun. There are martyrs and wounded," one witness said in an audio message circulated on social media.
"The young men grabbed his machine gun and beat him up, but he did not die. The police then came and took him away and the wounded were taken in private cars because ambulance cars did not arrive quickly."
Another witness, speaking to Reuters by telephone, said a third attacker was believed to be involved in the attack and that he may have fled or disappeared.
A video recording provided by activists showed a crowd surrounding a man prone on the floor, turning him over and unfastening what they said was a suicide belt around his waist.
Witnesses had earlier said three people died in the attack.
Saudi Arabia has suffered a string of deadly shooting and bomb attacks in recent months, many of them claimed by the ultra-radical IS.