At least nine people were killed, including three suspects, and dozens of other people were injured in a shooting near a mosque in Oman's capital, Muscat, in a rare flare of violence in the Middle Eastern sultanate.
The shooting took place near a mosque in the al-Wadi al-Kabir neighborhood in the east of the city, the Royal Oman Police said on X early Tuesday local time.
Video shared on social media and geolocated by NBC News appeared to show a crowd of people running as gunshots rang out near the Imam Ali mosque. Someone could be heard shouting “Oh Hussein.”
Police initially said that at least four people died and that “a number of others” were injured, citing preliminary information from an investigation. In a later statement, the police force said five civilians had been killed, as well as a police officer and three suspects. Officers and medical first responders were among the injured, it added.
Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Tuesday on X that at least four of the people who were killed were Pakistani nationals. It added that dozens of Pakistanis were injured in what it called the “dastardly terrorist attack.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a separate post that he was “deeply saddened.” He said he had instructed the country’s embassy in Muscat to “provide all possible assistance to the injured and visit the hospitals personally.”
Investigators have provided few details of the incident and did not share any information about potential suspects or a possible motive.
They said that “all security measures” had been taken to respond to the situation and that an investigation was still underway.
Shortly after the attack, Oman’s Department of Blood Banking Services wrote on X that “large amounts of blood reserves will be needed to heal the injured.”
The U.S. Embassy in Oman also issued a warning for Americans to “stay away from the area.”
It said U.S. citizens in the area should be aware of their surroundings, lock their doors, monitor local news and report any suspicious activity to the local police.
All visa appointments would be canceled for the day, it said, citing safety precautions. However, it added that they were likely to resume by Wednesday.
The State Department has a Level 2 travel advisory in effect advising people to exercise increased caution while they are traveling in Oman “due to terrorism and armed conflict,” specifically warning U.S. citizens not to travel to the area near the border with Yemen, the poorest country in the region, which has been wracked by civil war since August 2014.
Such violence is rare in Oman, which is on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.
Oman is predominantly Muslim country, although most who practice are neither Sunni nor Shiite. Instead, many in the country practice Ibadi Islam, a more moderate form of the religion.
The homicide rate was consistently at 0.7 per 100,000 people in 2010, 2015 and 2019, compared with 5.8 per 100,000 in 2019 in the U.S., growing from 5.7 in 2016 and 5.5 in 2010, according to data published by the World Health Organization.
