Manama: Worshippers fled a mosque in Saudi Arabia and the imam refused to deliver his sermon after they spotted a man wearing a large belt over his thobe and pushing buttons on his mobile phone.
Sources said that the general scare occurred as worshippers were getting ready for the Friday prayers at a mosque in Jazan in the southern part of the kingdom.
While some worshippers ran away when they saw the man with the belt, others called in the police to report him.
The imam said he would go up to deliver the sermon until the situation was cleared, Saudi news site Ajel reported.
The man was eventually taken out of the mosque by policemen and investigators discovered he was wearing an orthopedic belt following orders from doctors who had treated him for back pain resulting from a road accident.
The “suspect” was trying to call his family with the mobile to assure them he was all right after his car had broken down as he was travelling from one city to the other, Mohammad Al Harbi, the spokesperson for the Jazan police said.
Saudis have become jittery and particularly wary of suspicious looking people after two suicide bombers blew themselves in the Eastern Province on May 22 and May 29.
The first bomber detonated his belt explosives in a Shiite mosque in a village in Qatif province during Friday prayers, killing 22 people and wounding several others.
In the second attack, a bomber, dressed in a woman’s clothes, blew himself up in the vicinity of a mosque in the city of Dammam, killing four people who had approached him after they became suspicious of his presence in the area.
On June 26, a Saudi blew himself up in a mosque in Kuwait City, killing 27 worshippers and injuring 227 people.
The three attacks were claimed by terror group Daesh.