Kuwait Shia mosque bombing after Friday prayers kills 27

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Kuwait City after Friday prayers, killing 27 people and wounding 227 others, according to Reuters, citing the country's Interior Ministry.

"This incident targets our internal front, our national unity," Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah told Reuters after visiting the wounded in hospital. "But this is too difficult for them and we are much stronger than that."

The explosion struck the Imam Sadiq Mosque in the neighbourhood of al-Sawabir, a residential and shopping district of the country's capital. A posting on a Twitter account known to belong to ISIS said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber named Abu Suleiman al-Muwahed, who was wearing an explosive belt. The ISIS affiliate that claimed responsibility for the attack calls itself the Najd Province, and is the same group that took responsibility for a pair of bombing attacks on Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks.

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Kuwaiti parliament member Khalil al-Salih, who was at the mosque when the attack occurred, said worshippers were kneeling in prayer when the bomber walked into the religious centre and detonated explosives, destroying walls and the ceiling.

"It was obvious from the suicide bomber's body that he was young. He walked into the prayer hall during sujood [kneeling in prayer]. He looked ... in his 20s, I saw him with my own eyes," he told Reuters by telephone.

"The explosion was really hard," he said, adding that more than 2,000 people were praying at the mosque at the time.

Police formed a cordon around the mosque's complex immediately after the attack, banning people from entering or gathering near the area. Ambulances could be seen ferrying the wounded from the site.

Paramedic Abdelrahman al-Yusef said most of the victims were men or boys who were at the mosque. He said medics treated at least 179 people.

"We couldn't see anything, so we went straight to the wounded and tried to carry them out. We left the dead," said Hassan al-Haddad, 21, who said he saw several bodies.

Abdullah al-Saffar, who was at the mosque, said the explosion took place just after Friday midday prayers, which are typically the most crowded of the week. Attendance increases during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which started last week.

Another witness, Ahmad al-Shawaf, said worshippers were standing shoulder to shoulder in group prayer when the explosion struck near the door of the mosque, behind some of those praying. Al-Shawaf said the explosion took place near the end of a prayer that is traditional to Shia worshippers.

He said witnesses standing behind him said they saw a man walk in, stand in the back with other congregants and detonate his device.

'Terrorist, cowardly action'

Kuwaiti Justice, Religious Endowment and Islamic Affairs Minister Yacoub al-Sanna described the attack as a "terrorist and cowardly action which threatens our nation."

Al-Sanna told the Kuwait News Agency that the government would take all necessary measures to ensure the protection of houses of worship.

"Kuwait was and will remain the oasis of security and safety to all components of the Kuwaiti society and sects," he said.

It was the first suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Kuwait and worst militant attack in the country for many years.

ISIS regards Shia Muslims as heretics and refers to them derogatively as "rafideen" or "rejectionists." The ISIS Twitter statement said the bomber had targeted a "temple of the apostates."

The Shia population comprises between 15 and 30 per cent of the predominantly Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab state, where members of both communities are known to live side by side with little friction.