A gunman shot and killed five people in an attack on a Shi'ite Muslim meeting hall in Saudi Arabia on Friday, October 15, before being shot dead by police, in an attack claimed by Islamic State, Reuters reports citing Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV.

"A person who opened fire on a husseiniya was killed, and the attacker was in his twenties," reported government-run channel, Al Ekhbariya TV.

A resident reached by telephone told Reuters that the assailant approached the meeting hall in the eastern city of Saihat in a taxi but was stopped at a checkpoint manned by volunteers protecting the site.

Police arrived and a gunbattle broke out, which the resident said injured several people and left the shooter dead. Islamic State, an ultra-violent Sunni group based in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted online.

"With the approval of God Almighty, the soldier of the caliphate Shuja al-Dawsari, may God accept him, set his Kalashnikov upon one of the apostate polytheists' temples."

Amateur video described as filmed by activists inside the hall showed worshippers, including young children, crowding toward the entrance at the sound of gunfire before retreating in fear.