Riyadh: Expressions of solidarity by Saudi Arabia’s Sunni leaders towards Shiites are helping to bridge a divide after an unprecedented militant attack against the minority community, analysts say.

Condemnation of the deadly shooting in the Eastern Province town of Al Dalwa has sent a positive signal to Shiites who have long complained of marginalisation in the kingdom, analysts say.

The conciliatory gestures “could be the beginning” of a longer-term process of creating a more inclusive nation, said Stephane Lacroix, a specialist on Saudi Arabia at the Sciences Po university in Paris.

But more needs to be done or the Sunni-Shiite violence that has killed thousands in Iraq, and affected neighbouring Yemen and Bahrain, “will also hit Saudi Arabia,” he warned.

Seven Shiites, including children, were gunned down in the attack last week during the commemoration of Ashura, one of the Shiites’ holiest occasions.

Assailants also killed a man and stole his car to use in the shootings, a resident and local media reported.

Two members of the security forces died in battle with alleged suspects, and more than 30 others have been detained in a dragnet after the crimes, local media said.

The kingdom’s Grand Mufti, Shaikh Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh, has declared the attack to be “against the teachings of Islam”.

A Western diplomat said the authorities had sent an important message that Shiites “are a part of the nation and we are with you against terrorism.”

He described it as “a turning point,” noting that Interior Minister Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef had visited families of the victims, the wounded, and a Shiite religious centre.

“The objective of the terrorists was to divide and trigger a kind of sectarian strife and conflict between Sunnis and Shiites but the result is exactly the opposite,” the diplomat said, requesting anonymity.

Although Islamist extremists attacked Westerners and government targets in the kingdom between 2003 and 2006, a major militant attack against Shiites had never previously occurred.

The killings followed this year’s declaration of a “caliphate” in parts of Iraq and Syria by militants with Daesh who consider Shiites heretics, and have targeted them for death.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours have joined a US-led military coalition bombing Daesh in Syria, raising concerns about possible retaliation in the kingdom.

‘Shifted target set’

The Al Dalwa attack “shows that Sunni extremists have shifted their target set beyond the regime toward Shiites — perhaps in a bid to provoke civil strife,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Gulf expert at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Since 2011, protests and sporadic attacks on security forces have occurred in Shiite areas, leaving around 20 Shiite youth dead.

But there has been no major Shiite backlash to the Al Dalwa killings.

“Maybe this will be a chance for the Saudi state to reach out to the Shiites and to try to change something,” said Toby Matthiesen, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge.

He said the shooting “sends a message to the Shiite that the state, the Saudi state, is their only real protector against attacks by Sunni militants.”

The shooting could paradoxically help to bridge the gap between Shiites and the authorities, Matthiesen said, but the government would have to take more fundamental steps to address the minority’s disquiet.

He said these could include pardoning Shiite cleric Nimr Al Nimr, who was sentenced to death last month. Al Nimr was a driving force behind demonstrations in the oil-rich east in 2011 and 2012.

Tensions have continued to simmer in parts of the region, where an estimated two million or more Shiites live.

A resident of Al Dalwa said Shiites appreciated Prince Nayef’s visit and the government’s response to the murders.

But he said the community needs more, including a clampdown on sectarian speech in the media and reform of a school curriculum which portrays Shiites negatively.