Kuwait nabs 60 suspected of militant links

KUWAIT—Kuwait had detained 60 people and closed a local charity for alleged violations in raising funds for Syrians, local media said on Tuesday, as part of a crackdown on suspected militant links after the Gulf Arab state’s worst ever suicide bombing.

Kuwait has stepped up security after a suicide bomber who flew in from Saudi Arabia blew himself up inside a Shiite Muslim mosque during Friday prayers, killing himself and 26 other people. Kuwaiti officials said the attack was aimed at stirring up sectarian strife in the majority Sunni Muslim state.

Arabic-language al-Qabas newspaper quoted security sources in the major oil exporting state as saying that 60 people, including Kuwaiti citizens and nationals of other Gulf states, were being held for investigation by security services.

Some had been found to have been in contact with Sunni Islamist militants with others suspected of belonging to “extremist” groups, al-Qabas reported, without elaborating.

It also said that five people suspected of involvement in Friday’s mosque bombing by Saudi national Fahd Suliman Abdul-Muhsen al-Qabaa had been referred to the public prosecutor. The five, it said, had confessed to receiving financial transfers from abroad to carry out attacks targeting houses of worship.

Al-Qabas did not name them but Kuwait’s interior ministry has said it had detained the driver of the vehicle that took Qabaa to the Shiite mosque, the owner of the car and the owner of the housewhere the driver went to hide after the attack.