‘Kuwait bomber was Saudi citizen’
The bomber, Fahd Suliman Abdul Muhsen Al Qabaa, flew into Kuwait on Friday, only hours before he detonated explosives at Imam Al Sadeq mosque
Kuwait on Sunday identified a suicide bomber who carried out the country’s worst militant attack as a Saudi citizen and said it had detained the driver of the vehicle that took him to a mosque where he killed 27 people.
The interior ministry named the bomber as Fahd Suliman Abdul Muhsen Al Qabaa and said he flew into Kuwait’s airport at dawn on Friday, only hours before he detonated explosives at Kuwait City’s Imam Al Sadeq mosque. IS militant group claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at the mosque, where 2,000 people were praying at the time. “The interior ministry will continue its efforts to uncover the circumstances of this explosion,” interior ministry spokesman Adel Hashash told Kuwait state television.
The bombing has sharply heightened regional security concerns because IS militant group appears to be making good on its threat to step up attacks in the Holy Month of Ramadan.
The group, seeking to expand from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, says its priority target is the Arabian peninsula and in particular Saudi Arabia.
The ministry said the driver of the Japanese-made car, who left the mosque immediately after Friday’s bombing, was an illegal resident named Abdul Rahman Sabah Aidan.
The interior ministry, which had earlier reported the vehicle owner’s arrest, said Aidan, 26, was found hiding in one of the houses in Al Riqqa residential area. “Initial investigations showed that the owner of the house is a supporter of the deviant ideology,” the ministry said, employing a term often used by authorities in the Gulf Arab region to refer to hardline militants.
The owner of the house, a Kuwaiti citizen, was also detained, the ministry said.
Officials said the bombing was clearly meant to stir enmity between majority and minority communities and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.
Kuwaitis reacted with outrage to the bombing. Some said citizens who fund armed groups fighting in Syria and Iraq were to blame for any militancy in Kuwait.
“The wrath of Almighty will come upon IS and everyone who is supporting them and collecting funds for them under the cover of helping refugees and orphans,” wrote Hamad Al Baghli, a Kuwaiti, on Twitter.
“Everyone who is funding and donating to ISIS should be charged with treason because they want to burn Kuwait,” tweeted Asmaa Asiri.