KUWAIT CITY, 13 January 2005 — Kuwait said yesterday it was questioning 30 suspects in connection with a deadly shootout between militants and police, as liberals accused the government of promoting terror by supporting Islamists.

“The interrogation is ongoing with 30 suspects,” Interior Minister Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, told Al-Anba newspaper, after Monday’s gunbattle left two intelligence officers and one assailant dead.

The minister did not rule out that the perpetrators of the incident, a rare occurrence in Kuwait, could be among those detained.

The arrests came as part of a major crackdown by security forces in areas used by suspected militants following the gunfight, which triggered a new US warning to its citizens in Kuwait. Those arrested include the assailants’ alleged ideological mentor, a hard-liner, a security source told AFP.

“I don’t think it is a terrorist plot because of the circumstances that surrounded the incident,” Sheikh Nawaf told the daily, after earlier declining to link the militants to Al-Qaeda until investigations are completed.

Security authorities are hunting for an unknown number of militants who fled after gunning down the two officers and wounding two others.

A security official told AFP Tuesday that two to three militants, believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda, were being pursued.

Liberal writers blasted the government yesterday, claiming it is harboring extremists and for its alliance with political Islamist groups.

Saud Al-Samaka held the government responsible for the deaths of the two officers. “It looks as if the two martyrs ... were the victims of terrorism, but in fact they were the victims of the state,” which has failed to curb extremism, he said in Al-Qabas.

Sami Al-Nesif, media adviser to the Kuwaiti premier, used his column in Al-Anba to call for firm action after the “terror knife has reached our necks and we are now at a crossroads.”

Islamist groups, which have 13 MPs in the 50-seat Parliament, have also strongly condemned the shooting, describing it as unprecedented in Kuwait and saying terror ideology represented an isolated minority in the country.

The embassy of the United States issued a warning to US citizens Tuesday that armed “terrorists” were at large in the emirate and that they should exercise caution.

It had warned Americans a day earlier that people were driving around Kuwait planning to “randomly attack Westerners.”

The British Embassy has joined the US mission in warning Britons here to remain vigilant. US forces and civilians in Kuwait, home to a large number of Americans, have been the target of a number of attacks, two of them fatal.