Suicide bomber’s driver held

KUWAIT yesterday 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 Shia Muslim mosque where he killed 27 people.

The interior ministry named the bomber as Fahd Suliman Abdul-Muhsen alQabaa and said he flew into Kuwait’s airport at dawn, only hours before he detonated explosives at Kuwait City’s Imam al-Sadeq mosque.

The militant self-styled Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at the mosque, where 2 000 worshippers were pray- ing at the time. It was one of three attacks on three continents apparently linked to hardline Islamists.

“The interior ministry will continue its efforts to uncover the circumstances of this explosion,” interior ministry spokesperson Adel Hashash told Kuwait state television.

The bombing has sharply heightened regional security concerns because IS appears to be making good on its threat to step up attacks in the holy month of Ramadaan.

The group, seeking to expand from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, says its priority target is the Arabian peninsula, in particular Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest places, from where it plans to expel Shia Muslims.

IS subscribes to a puritanical school of Sunni Islam that considers Shias as heretics.

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. 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 Sunnis and minority Shias and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.

Kuwait is a conservative Muslim country where alcohol is banned, but it is less strict than Saudi Arabia on issues such as women’s rights and freedom of religion.

Kuwaitis reacted with outrage to the bombing.

Some said citizens who fund Islamist armed groups fighting in Syria and Iraq were to blame for any militancy in Kuwait.

“The wrath of God 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 IS should be charged with treason because they want to burn Kuwait,” tweeted Asmaa Asiri.

Wrath of God will come upon IS, all supporting them