Three terror suspects arrested in Kuwait

KUWAIT yesterday said it had arrested three of its nationals planning to launch a terrorist attack against US troops in the emirate and seized weapons and ammunition in their possession.

“Security services have arrested three Kuwaitis planning to carry out a terrorist attack on US forces currently in the country,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

“A number of weapons and ammunition to carry out this operation were also seized.”

The ministry named the trio as Ahmed Mutlaq Nasr al-Mutairi, Abdullah Mutlaq Nasr al-Mutairi and Musaed Hawran Shabib al-Enezi. Kuwait, liberated from Iraqi occupation by a US-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, has witnessed six shooting incidents, two fatal, involving Americans in the past five months.

In October, two Kuwaitis killed a marine and wounded another during war games on Failaka island, 12 miles east of Kuwait City.

One of the two assailants, both killed in the attack, had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, according to the interior minister.

In January, an American civilian contractor was killed and another injured in an ambush near a US army base in the emirate.

The alleged Kuwaiti gunman was arrested after trying to flee to Saudi Arabia and, according again to the interior ministry, confessed to the attack and said he “embraced the ideas of al-Qaida”.

Kuwait is currently home to some 98,000 American troops out of more than 200,000 massed around Iraq, based in scores of newly-built desert camps.

The emirate is poised to be the main staging area for a possible US-led invasion of Iraq over its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

However, Kuwait has repeatedly said its bases could only be used if a fresh assault is mandated by the United Nations.