Tolerance at home and neutrality in foreign affairs are the hallmarks of Omani policy. This made last week’s attack on the Imam Ali Mosque in the capital, Muscat, all the more shocking. According to the Royal Oman Police forces, three gunmen killed six people, four of them Pakistanis, and injured at least another 30 before they were gunned down. The attack targeted residents of Wadi Al-Kabir, a neighbourhood observing Ashura, the day of remembrance particularly associated with the Shia for whom it commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Ali’s son and the Prophet’s grandson Imam Hussein on the battlefield in the seventh century AD.

Media reports identified the attackers as “three brothers”, and the police indicated they were under the influence of extremist ideas. Later, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack. A video released by the terrorist group’s Aaq news agency showed the three brothers standing before the group’s black flag, pledging allegiance to Abu Hafs Al-Hashimi. IS, a fundamentalist Sunni group, has repeatedly targeted Shia ceremonies, processions and worshippers in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it has never before claimed an attack in Oman, where Shia Muslims make up around five per cent of the population, according to US State Department estimates. The rest of Oman’s 4.5 million citizens are equally divided between Sunni and Ibadi.

Social media accounts known for inciting sectarian strife suggested that the attack, being unprecedented, reflects a Sunni-Shia rivalry in the Gulf. But the fact that Oman has been a peaceful mediator and helped to negotiate a fragile truce in Yemen between the Houthi militia and the Saudi-backed government proves these claims false. Since the start of the war on Gaza in October last year, IS or its terrorist predecessor, Al-Qaeda have done absolutely nothing to help the Palestinian resistance or deter Israel. Although these terrorist groups constantly repeat their rhetoric against America and the West, no action was taken. Instead, they surfaced in Russia, killing scores of civilians in a concert near Moscow, and now in Muscat. Looking at the chronology of Al-Qaeda and IS attacks, the only possible conclusion is that they have killed more Muslims than non-Muslims, and they have killed more Sunni Muslims than those from other sects.

Many analysts have questioned the false rhetoric spreading on social media, among maverick opposition groups or the terrorist groups’ sympathisers. Andrew Hammond of Oxford University in the UK told Al- Ahram Weekly: “Oman and Yemen are the only powers in the Gulf doing anything for Gaza and IS, who could never manage an attack in Oman, launch one now over sectarian hatred? I don’t think anyone believes it. It is extremely suspicious. It’s very strange.” Whether in Iraq, Syria, or other countries in Asia and Africa, terrorist groups try to recruit militants and possibly carry out attacks, killing mainly civilians. Salafi Jihadists have been trying for some 20 years to gain a foothold in Oman. “Previously,” Hammond added, “when there was a political problem between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it looked to Omanis as if the presence the Salafis wanted to have there would be in preparation for carrying out attacks. However, since 2019 the Iranians and the Saudis have managed to make up, and there has been absolutely no indication in recent years of an attempt to do anything. Even in previous years, Omani security was on the case so that nothing happened anyway. It is so unusual and so strange that we should suddenly have an attack at this point.”

It is not only the rarity that raises suspicion but the timing as well. One plausible explanation implicitly links the attack to the war on Gaza. According to Hammond: “This is the point when the Omanis have really annoyed the Americans by not agreeing to pressure the Houthis in Yemen over the Red Sea attacks. Oman also made it clear that as a government representing its population it respects public sympathy with the Palestinians in Gaza. That is why they are not in a position to pressure any power in the region that wants to stand up for the people in Gaza where Americans are supplying weapons to the Israelis to carry on that genocidal campaign of theirs.”

Oman is always neutral, but the brutality and injustice of the war on Gaza goes beyond the Omanis’ capacity for tolerance. The Omani media might be among the few in the Arab world that refer to Israel as “the Zionist entity,” making them a lot more open in their reporting compared to other Arab countries. “You can see that Oman has annoyed certain powers,” Hammond says, “not regional, but in the West. Then, suddenly IS appears and carries out attacks in places where they have not been able to do anything before. We have not seen any attacks by IS in the Gulf for years. It really raises the question of who is manipulating these groups to carry out such attacks now.”

It might be far-fetched to suggest that Israel is manipulating IS, but subtle incidents in the public domain prove there is more than meets the eye. If Al-Qaeda was initially formed in Pakistan and Afghanistan under the auspices of Washington with financing from the Gulf, then IS and other so-called Jihadists in Syria have received direct and indirect Israeli support at times, as media reports confirmed.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 25 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly