Probe ongoing on suspect extremist
KUWAIT CITY, April 16: Controversy surrounds the whereabouts of the Kuwaiti Hussein Al-Dhufairi, the suspected member of the Islamic State group, who was arrested along with his Syrian wife by the Philippines security authorities last month.
According to the Al-Qabas daily he is expected to be handed over to the Kuwaiti authorities ‘within days’.
The daily quoting reliable sources said, the Kuwait security team which is in the Philippines to bring the suspect back to Kuwait have come across some hurdles because of the seriousness of the case.
The daily also said investigations are ongoing to establish if the suspect was acting alone or in collusion with local ‘terrorist’ groups in the Philippines.
On the other hand, the Annahar daily
said Al-Dhufairi has already been extradited to Kuwait and that he was whisked away by high-ranking State Security officials who had left for Manila to take part in the interrogations.
The Al-Rai daily said Hussain AlDhufairi arrived in Kuwait aboard a military plane which was dispatched to Manila to bring back the suspect who faces the charges of belonging to a terror group and planning to carry out attack in Kuwaiti.
His wife, Rahaf Zina, who holds a Syrian passport, could not be sent alongside her husband to Kuwait because she has no residence permit. She could have been sent to Qatar from where she had flown into Kuwait.
Al-Dhufairi, 40, was reportedly a DAESH bomb maker who helped plot attacks in Kuwait and possibly in the Philippines. He is reportedly the brother of AbdulMohsen Al-Dhufairi, also known as Abu Jandal Al Kuwaiti, one of the most dangerous Kuwaiti members of DAESH. He was killed months ago in an international coalition bombing raid.
Rahaf, 27, was reportedly the widow of a top DAESH commander in Syria. After her arrest, she told authorities that she was pregnant and she was sent to a hospital, Philippine media reported.
Al-Dhufairi and his wife were arrested in late March in an upscale commercial district in Taguig city in metropolitan Manila. However, the arrests were not announced until April 7 when the handcuffed suspects were presented to reporters. They were not, however, allowed to speak.
Following Al-Dhufairi’s arrest, security authorities in Kuwait conducted raids that led to detaining three of his relatives and seven members of his network.
Kuwaiti media reported that the police seized materials used to make explosives as well as documents.