KUWAIT, 12 January 2005 — Kuwaiti authorities have detained at least six Islamists as part of investigations into Monday’s deadly shootout between suspected militants and state security forces, a security source said yesterday. “The Interior Ministry is cracking down on suspected militants across the country,” the source told Reuters. “State security is now holding a minimum of six Kuwaitis, who will be questioned on the whereabouts of the gunmen who carried out the crime,” the source said.

A shootout on Monday night — described by officials of the Gulf Arab state as a terrorist attack — between suspected militants and state security forces ended in the death of two state security men and a fugitive militant. The fugitive, Kuwaiti national Fawaz Al-Otaibi who died in hospital of wounds after the shootout, was wanted by the state for crimes against national security, the source said. His accomplices got away in a white car and are now being sought by state security.

The US Embassy, in an advisory to Americans in Kuwait, said at least one suspected “terrorist known to be armed and dangerous” was still at large. The embassy in Kuwait of the United States, a key US ally in the region, issued a new warning to US citizens yesterday that armed “terrorists” were at large in the emirate and that they should exercise caution.

“At least one suspected terrorist, known to be armed and dangerous, remains at large. The two terrorists involved in the shooting may have been part of a larger group,” said a message from the embassy in the second alert in as many days. After the shootout, Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah on Monday night held an emergency meeting with his top security aides and ordered a crackdown on militants. He said the dead suspect and those who fled were Kuwaiti nationals.

However, the minister refused to link the militants with Al-Qaeda, preferring to wait until investigations were completed. “We don’t have (sufficient) information to accuse anyone. Investigations are ongoing... We have not arrested any of the suspects to know which side they belong to,” Nawaf reiterated yesterday after briefing Parliament’s interior and defense committee on developments.

Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmed Fahd Al-Sabah, meanwhile, blamed “hard-line ideology” for the attack, saying “extremists” were out to destroy society. “The spread of hard-line ideology, which has no relation to our religion, traditions and customs, is rejected by Kuwaiti society, the leadership and the international community,” he said.

Liberal and Islamist MPs alike urged the government to deal firmly with terrorists while a former senior minister warned that “sleeping cells” of extremist groups existed in the country’s security agencies.

Meanwhile, Kuwait executed two Pakistanis yesterday for smuggling heroin and hashish to the conservative Gulf Arab state, the state news agency KUNA said. The hangings brought to six the number of people put to death since Kuwait made drug trafficking a capital crime in 1995.

In another development, Kuwaiti leaders have personally donated eight million dollars in aid for Asia’s tsunami victims, two days after the oil-rich emirate raised its official aid pledge from $10 million to $100 million.